


No Escaping Fate

by wellenough



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Magic, Espionage, F/M, Humor, Soulmates, War, additional tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18872596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellenough/pseuds/wellenough
Summary: Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are soulmates. This is all well and good for them, but it will turn the Wizarding world on its ear.Will Mrs. Granger and Narcissa Malfoy kill one another?Does Snape survive?How will Harry and Ron deal with this !?... And what's going on with Dumbledore?We answer all these questions and more!**Actively being updated**





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> The story starts in 1996, in the summer before sixth year. I moved some things around from canon, but... that's fanfiction, right?
> 
> Updated once a week.

**CHAPTER ONE**

It wasn’t ideal. Fifteen minutes prior, Draco Malfoy had appeared in her front garden with a wide-eyed and, frankly, unfocused stare. Without any conscious thought on her part, she had surprised them both by hitting him square in the forehead with the only thing she had at hand: her left shoe. The victory of a good throw—having never particularly excelled at sports—didn’t last long. With the impact of shoe to skull, his unfocused stare turned direct. His gray eyes narrowed, and he moved slowly but purposefully towards her.

And then—suddenly!—they were in her living room. Hermione wasn’t sure how he had gotten through the door. She had made moves to shut it on his fingers. But, everything was a bit blurred around the edges. She knew a few things. She knew they walked. No one had cast any spells. He didn’t appear to have his wand on him and she, still technically bound by the rules of underage magic, had hers tucked away in her school trunk. She touched her thigh for a moment, thinking of the wand holster she had bought. She didn’t need her wand, not now.

She was strangely sure she didn’t need magic to stop him. His stare was predatory, but not particularly frightening. If anything, she felt annoyed. He wasn’t chasing her, exactly. He walked forward, and she backwards like partners in some demented dance. And then they were in the living room.

She knew she should be afraid. She was unarmed, in the middle of a war, and her racist schoolmate had shown up in her childhood home. It had all the makings of a terrifying situation. But, as she tossed her other shoe at his chest and, for the second time that day, made contact, she was not at all afraid. It was as if something inside her expected this to happen. Maybe not in this particular fashion but she wasn’t very surprised to see her nemesis staring at her like she was a giant steak.

“Granger! Honestly!” Draco caught the remote she tossed at him in midair. Hermione shrugged. She picked up another remote, glad her parents had invested in a cable box. She wasn’t going to throw a lamp at him, after all. Malfoy was being frustrating but a lamp to the head? That could kill someone.

“Pumpkin?” Richard Granger, DDS, poked his head in from the kitchen. His face transitioned quickly between a smile and a frown, as he put down his golf bag by the door. He took off his hat, and moved further into the living room, standing between Hermione—hand poised toss another remote—and the wizard. “Is everything alright in here?”

Draco Malfoy sketched a quick, shallow bow to the dentist. Hermione rolled her eyes from behind her father’s back. “Draco Malfoy,” Malfoy said politely. “Mr. Granger, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Dr. Granger,” Dr. Granger corrected.

“You are?” Hermione asked, skeptical.

“I am, Dr. Granger,” Malfoy confirmed.

“Perhaps we should all sit down.” Jennifer Granger sailed in from the kitchen, holding a tray stacked with cups and a pitcher of lemonade. Richard, deferring to his wife, moved from between his daughter and the strange young man to the couch.

“Mrs. Granger,” Malfoy responded with another quick bow. Hermione was sure, at this point, that she was trapped in some strange dream.

“Dr. Granger,” Dr. Richard Granger corrected again.

“Doctors Granger,” Malfoy said, nodding. “Your daughter is top of her class so I am not surprised that her parents were as well. Doctors are healers, are they not?” And, so he sat down in one of the leather wingback chairs next to the couch, as if it was not strange at all for a Death Eater (Hermione presumed) to drink lemonade with a muggle. Hermione focused all her attention on the clear mark on his chest from where her slip-on sneaker, sole first, had hit him.

“Aren’t you delightful?” Jennifer smiled at her daughter and handed Draco a glass of lemonade. “Pardon me, but I did not catch your name.”

“Draco Malfoy,” Hermione answered. “He goes to school with me, and he should not be here. Why are you here?” It was Hermione’s turn to stalk forward. Draco stared at her blandly—as if he hadn’t been hit in the head with a shoe just minutes ago—and took a sip of lemonade.

“Granger, you know why I’m here.”

“She does?” Jennifer turned towards her daughter. Her blue eyes widened, inquisitively.

“I do not.” Hermione was lying. She was lying through her teeth. She picked up her own glass of lemonade and crossed the room to get as far away from him as possible. The minute her father entered the living room, she had known. The minute everything slowed down, she had felt it. She could feel it even now, as she tried to pretend that this moment wouldn’t be the last normal moment of her entire life. If she had to pick a last meal, it would not have been her mother’s overly sweet lemonade.

The grandfather clock in the entryway was the only noise for what felt like several minutes as Hermione contemplated the best way to explain whatever… this… was. Maybe she could ignore it. Maybe she could go to her room, pack her bag, and leave the country. Maybe she could change her name or sink to the bottom of the ocean or…

“We’re soulmates.” Draco Malfoy’s words rang through the living room as loudly as they rang through her skull. She wondered briefly if she’d hear the words even as she died. Would her ears ever stop ringing with the phrase “we’re soulmates”? Her magic, had no such compunctions, and eagerly reached out to his. His magic felt like a cool breeze, dancing just on the top of her arms, touching the back of her legs. She sighed and moved back to the couch.

“How romantic,” Jennifer cooed.

“Not romantic, Jen! They’re sixteen. They don’t know what they’re doing,” Richard shouted.

Jennifer sighed. “Hermione is seventeen, Richard!”

“Time turner, Dad,” Hermione mumbled.

“I love young love.” Jennifer turned towards Hermione as she settled herself between her parents. “How long have you two been dating?”

“We haven’t,” Hermione fairly growled. “Our magic brought Malfoy here. We haven’t much got along in the past, but he’s telling the truth.”

Richard Granger stared between the two. Draco sat particularly upright, his back never even nearing the high back of the seat. Seemed posh. Jen liked posh. Hell, Jen was posh. But he did not and was not. Not to mention the boy’s intensity, which was particularly focused on his daughter. Hermione, who until this summer, Richard had thought was just a normal girl—well, as normal as you could be while also being a witch—instead of someone marked for death. These days Richard’s thoughts seemed to circle around the scar that criss-crossed Hermione’s body and almost took her life. He tried not to focus on it, but it was always there in the background. The dull hum of knowing that someone had tried to kill his teen daughter. And the intensity that this teen boy’s gaze had did not speak of puppy love—of flowers and school dances. It spoke of desperation, the kind that could get someone killed. It made Richard uncomfortable. “What’s this rot?”

“Wizards don’t like to think of ourselves as magical creatures, Dr. Granger,” Draco responded, topping off his glass of barely touched lemonade. “But we are. And, as such, we have certain responsibilities to magic. You know Harry Potter can talk to snakes?”

The Drs. Granger nodded. Draco was relieved. As least Hermione had told them this much. “That is a gift from magic itself. I doubt he knows that. I doubt anyone has explained it to him. But magic gifts certain people special abilities that they are intended to use to help the entire wizarding world.”

“As if defeating Vold-“ Draco made a shushing noise and tapped his left arm. Hermione frowned. “Already?”

“My parents would have more strenuously opposed it had they known.” Draco gestured between them.

Hermione sighed. “We’ll have to fix that.”

“We’ll have to fix a great many things,” Draco agreed.

Richard cleared his throat loudly. “Apologies,” Draco said, inclining his head. “As I was saying, magic gifts individuals occasionally. I am one of those individuals.”

“And you’ve been _gifted_ our daughter?” Richard asked, clearly displeased. “Hermione is not an object. Not a gift. She’s her own person.”

Draco nodded again. “I agree. Grang—Hermione is a very talented witch. I believe that we have been gifted this connection for a reason.”

Hermione sighed, picking up the story. “Malfoy and I are on opposite sides of the war.”

And that’s truly when hell broke loose.

If Hermione could do it all over again, she never would have signed her parents up for Prophet delivery. But, at eleven, she hadn’t known she’d become embroiled in a war that started years before she was born. She was even less aware that her closest friend would be a young man with vision problems who, for reasons beyond his control, was touted as The Boy Who Lived. She hadn’t known those things when they went to Diagon Alley the first time. The only thing she had known at that time was that she was a witch and she would soon be disconnected from her parents, her favorite people, for months in a world that they could neither enter of their own volition, or understand without assistance. So in a gesture of good faith and muggle-magic relations, she had signed them up for their own delivery of the _Prophet_.

Jennifer and Richard, upon learning that the wizarding world was filled with as many, if not a greater number, of dangers than the muggle one had wanted to withdraw Hermione from school. After her near death at the Ministry of Magic, it had taken visits from both Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape to convince her parents that she belonged at Hogwarts. Jennifer and Richard agreed, reluctantly, but signed her up for French classes, hoping that she would excel and they could make a compelling argument to send her to Beauxbatons.

Hermione had never failed at anything like she failed at French. At the time, Hermione was baffled. She wasn’t trying to do poorly. Honestly. But, as her magic touched Draco Malfoy’s, she felt that maybe she had been trying to fail, albeit unknowingly. Hermione shook herself out of her reverie as the shouting between her parents ceased and her father picked up a lamp.

“Put down the lamp, Richard. He’s clearly not trying to kill us this instant,” Jennifer Granger pointed out reasonably. Even so, she moved the tray of lemonade a few inches further from Draco. Hermione tried to hold back a smile. Her mother, even in times of great distress, had always, and would always, take her revenge on others by making things just a tiny bit annoying. Richard kept hold of the lamp, even as he brought the base to rest again on the oak side table.

“Hermione and I are going to end the war,” Draco said.

“But for whose benefit?” Jennifer asked, pouring herself the easily reached lemonade.

Draco smiled broadly at that. “Why, Dr. Granger, for ours.”


	2. Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**  
  
All told, it took two hours to pack up the entire Granger residence. Tchotkes were tucked away in bags fitted with illegal extendable charms, couches shrunk, and family photo frames made unbreakable before being tossed rather carelessly into suitcases. Draco shrunk and pocketed the grandfather clock, tucking it in a pocket of his robes. The last task was, of course, to burn down the house. Hermione was to apparate with her parents to a field in Wiltshire while Draco undertook the task. He touched her hand and, suddenly, the vision of the field was in her mind. She had never felt magic like this before. It was without parallel, without a wand. It was effortless.  
  
As Hermione took a last glance at the home in which she took her first steps, she wondered if Draco would take pleasure in burning it to ash. She suspected he did. Just because they were soul bound didn't mean his feelings on muggles shifted.  
  
Hermione's parents were so easy to convince that Hermione wondered if her and Draco's magic was more potent than she could rightfully feel. Was it spilling all over? Could other magical persons and creatures feel it? She dreaded running into Remus Lupin, with his werewolf senses and nose.  
  
Hermione's consciousness felt divided even as she raised her wand. Her magic reached out at every opportunity to brush itself against Draco's. She felt, on a sincere and deep level, a sense of "right" even as she knew beneath his robes lay a Dark Mark.  
  
But her brain could not ignore the facts. At the request of a Death Eater, Hermione had packed up her familial home and was about to be party to arson. She was entrusting her muggle parents' safety to known pureblood supremacists. She felt conflicted within her very soul. Her bones itched. Whether she wished it or not, her fate was tied to that of Draco Malfoy, irrevocably. And one could never doubt his sense of self preservation. The Malfoys had lived through many wars and planned to live through many more.  
  
"He's handsome," her mother had whispered as Hermione slashed her wand through the air. With a crack and a tilting world, Hermione apparated them away from her soon-to-be-burning home.  
  
"He's something," Hermione returned, as they landed. Her parents struggled for a moment as they landed in the empty field. Her mother held her stomach. Her father rubbed his head as if he hit it.  
  
The situation was ridiculous. Her father wore his preferred golf gear: Madras pants and a rather saggy polo shirt. Her mother looked crisp in comparison in a white skirt and ironed pink polo. Even as a refugee, her mother was freshly pressed. And Hermione? She was seventeen due to an illegal time turner, and apparently had a soul mate.  
  
Draco appeared a few minutes later with the last of their bags and a determined look. "Granger, why haven't you, at the very least, gone on?"  
  
Hermione frowned, looking around the empty field. "Gone where?"  
  
"To the house," Draco responded, frustrated. "Open your eyes." He grabbed her hand, and put his face directly next to her ear. His next words were quiet and angry. "To survive this, you will need to at least act like you were born a witch."  
  
Hermione's magic had been reaching to his of its own volition. But, for the first time since this day started, she deliberately focused on the connection between them. Opening her eyes again, she saw a beautifully maintained garden and a house so white it hurt her eyes to look at it. She must have gasped because Draco wore a familiar smug impression. "Welcome home," he said, releasing her hand.  
  
She swallowed, even though her throat felt dry. "Dad," she said, grabbing his hand. "I'll walk you to the house. Draco will help Mum."  
  
Draco gallantly presented his arm to her mother, who took it with a smile. Hermione wondered if this was all some grand adventure for her parents. But, looking up at her father, his face was bone white. "You'll see the house when we get closer," Draco said to her mother, the two of them traveling on ahead. "It is warded so only family can see it."  
  
"Is that what we are, pumpkin?" Richard asked, leaning down to speak softly to her. "Are we family?"  
  
Hermione shrugged which turned into a whole body shiver. "We're certainly bound," she responded. Ahead, her mother and Draco smiled at one another like old friends. Jennifer Granger has always been skilled at keeping up the flow of conversation.  
  
Hermione felt none of her mother's airiness as she and her father followed at a snail's pace behind. The house shimmered in front of her like a very heavy mirage.  


* * *

  
  
When Hermione and Richard reached the top of the white gravel drive, Draco and Jennifer were engaged in conversation with six elves dressed in clean white tea towels. Her father grimaced as he saw them, succinctly expressing Hermione's own unease. For her part, Hermione tried to keep her expression neutral but she suspected she failed. She was never good at hiding her emotions.  
  
"Don't grimace so, Granger," Draco chastised. "You'll upset the elves."  
  
Jennifer pushers a small pinkish elf forward, putting her manicured hand neatly between the elf's bony shoulder blades. "This is Penny. She's been waiting for you."  
  
"Oh yes, Mistress. I have been waiting. Young Master said you didn't exist. But I knew and I waited," Penny said, her sharp green eyes seeming to widen to the point where they overtook her face. Hermione had the sudden desire to sob.  
  
"Penny," she said, leaning down and taking the elf's hands within her own, "you do not need to wait for me or any wizard or any witch. You are your own. You always will be." Penny started crying, leaning her body towards Hermione. Hermione embraced her and burst into tears herself. The two cried in one another's arms for minutes. Hermione wasn't sure what made Penny cry. Maybe they were both exhausted–Penny of waiting for her and Hermione being suddenly waited upon.  
  
When Hermione stood up, still holding the elf's hand, she saw her parents conferring quietly down the drive. Draco stared at her and the elf with a look that, if she didn't know better, could be termed indulgent. Hermione immediately let Penny's hand go. Penny silently gathered the Grangers' belongings around herself and vanished.  
  
Hermione brushed off her knees as she stood up. "Are your parents home? Is He?" she asked Draco.  
  
"My parents are out. But they know to expect you." He glanced at her family, but Hermione could not read his expression. "And your family. He, however, is not in residence."  
  
"Will he expect to be in residence?"  
  
"Yes. We will not be staying here long," Draco responded. He presented his arm to her, as he had done to her mother earlier. Without thinking, she held it. Better the devil you know.  
  
"So you believe this?" Hermione asked, moving with Draco towards the manor. She hoped her parents followed but she didn't want to show weakness by looking backwards.  
  
Draco looked down. She could feel his gaze on the crown of her head. She refused to acknowledge it. "Do you always ignore your magic like this?" His voice was filled with awe.  
  
"Muggleborns are taught to," Hermione demurred. It was true, after all. Purebloods and halfbloods might find themselves in environments filled with magic. But a muggleborn found causing accidental magic past age eleven could find themselves in legal trouble. If her magic did so little as reach out to other magic on the street, it could activate the trace. One could never be too careful.  
  
Hermione remembered her twelfth birthday. Her parents, wanting her to feel reconnected to her non-magical home, had thrown her a surprise birthday in August. They had invited her two friends, Sue and Gina. But they also invited Clara.  
  
Clara hadn't attended her primary school. A daughter of her parents' friends, Clara and she had grown up together. But they could not be more different. Clara had beautiful, straight teeth and lovely corn silk hair. She was proud, pretty, and cruel. At Hermione's twelfth birthday, she had pulled Hermione aside. It was ostensibly to make secret birthday wishes between friends. But, in actuality, Clara had laid out more vitriol than Hermione had ever heard. Well, at least, the most she had heard up until the point when Malfoy had called her a mudblood.  
  
And Hermione had snapped. Her magic, which at McGonagall's urging, had been so tightly contained, so wrapped up and buried, sprang free. She could feel it around herself, covering her like a too-warm blanket. She felt rather damp and sick for a moment, like she had a fever that suddenly broke. She took a breath deeper than she had been able to take since school ended. She and her magic were once again together.  
  
She remembered seeing one of Clara's hairs drift free of the pigtail it was held in and fall upon her mother's green lawn. She remembered feeling extremely satisfied at this. She had nodded to Clara and said, "If what you say is true perhaps it would be best if you leave."  
  
Clara, waiting on her parents, could not leave, of course. She had stuck her tongue out at Hermione. "You know I have to wait for my mum and dad, idiot." They didn't stay long though as Clara's hair began falling out in large chunks. Hermione remembered hearing Clara's scream from the bathroom, low and pained like a stuck pig. She should have felt bad. But she didn't. It was just hair, and she had always been vindictive.  
  
Later that week, Hermione had received a letter from Dumbledore. He cleared it up with the Ministry, he'd written, but if it happened again he'd have no choice but to expel her. There was no acknowledgement on his part or the part of the Ministry that it wasn't conscious. Clara wasn't intended to lose her hair at all. It had just... happened.  
  
Hermione dragged herself away from old memories as she realized Draco was speaking. "I see your magic as well as I see my own. I can feel it when we touch and even when you are across England. Your magic has been calling to me for weeks," he said, stepping back as the giant doors of the manor opened to receive them. There was no need to step backwards. The doors opened inwards. But, in allowing a minute half step back towards the drive, the drama of the reveal was even greater.  
  
The manor's interior, much like its exterior, gleamed. The floors shone and looked too slippery to step on, each natural gradient of the granite immediately clear to the eye. A chandelier that, in a non-magical home would be illegal due to its potential to cause a blaze, lit slowly as the doors completed their journey. As each candle snapped to life, a new part of the foyer was revealed: a golden cornice here, a Baroque chair there, a sleeping portrait of a medieval Malfoy with lustrous white hair, a lush landscape, a tall Ming vase. It was like a beautiful, terribly curated museum.  
  
"Why did you wait?" Hermione asked. Talking was good. Talking made her breathe in and out as she prepared to dine with people who had wanted her dead, who perhaps still wanted her dead. She still didn't turn around to see if her parents were behind her. She hoped they were. But she had to stare straight ahead. This manor might be beautiful but she suspected the very building would murder her if she wasn't careful.  
  
Draco, feeling no such compunctions about what was, after all, his own childhood home, immediately slouched upon entering. All day, he had played the straight-backed aristocrat. But, here in Wiltshire, he turned back into the boy Hermione knew. His posture turned teenaged, his mien bratty. "I had to tell my parents which... I knew they wouldn't be thrilled. Plus, I wasn't going to come get you while he was here, was I?" His tone mocked her. Hermione felt her ire raise.  
  
"Your home is... grand, Draco," Jennifer Granger's voice came from behind them.  
  
"And your parents rude," Richard grumbled to himself, getting an elbow in the ribs that Hermione could hear but not see. She waited until they moved to her line of sight. Her parents exhibited no real fear about the home, turning their backs on the entrance. Hermione felt her panic rise. Talking, she reminded herself. Talking was good.  
  
"In Wizarding culture," Hermione heard her voice take on what she referred to mentally as her 'classroom tone', "hosts only ever greet people inside. The Malfoys most likely have a room dedicated to their floo and the room beyond that one is where they would actually greet guests. This foyer is likely only used for reception when they are having a large scale event like a ball or gala." She saw Draco's eye roll in her peripheral vision and reminded herself that now was not the time to start an argument. They'd have the rest of their lives for that, wouldn't they?  
  
"My parents are currently settling some affairs but will be back before dinner," Draco clarified, placing Hermione's hand back on his arm. "Unfortunately, due to the war, we will need to move within the next day or two to a different property of ours." Everyone ignored Richard's indignant snort at the mention of multiple Malfoy  properties. "For now, Denny and Shiny will show you to rooms where you can relax and rest before dinner. They have unpacked the items you will need for the next day or two."  
  
Jennifer gave Draco a quick buss on the cheek, surprising him and humiliating Hermione. "You truly have thought of everything. If Hermione's magic is... bound to another's, we can only be happy that it was to someone with so much foresight. Now come, Richard." Jennifer moved forward with purpose, following the elves without a backwards glance.  
  
Richard looked back at Hermione, stricken. "I have things to talk about with Malfoy. Go on without me," Hermione said gently. He hesitated for a moment but with another call from Jennifer, already halfway up the stairs, he turned to follow.  


* * *

  
The den was masculine. Oak-lined walls were offset by navy chairs and a dark green carpet with pile so high that, at first glance, it looked like the forest floor. It was designed as an intimate room. But appearances could be deceiving, and Hermione knew that there were dozens of these rooms. This manor was filled to the brim with intimate-looking dens and imposing offices and receiving rooms with feminine charm designed to trick you into giving up your gold, your daughter, your soul.  
  
She could see Lucius Malfoy opening the door for associates. "This is my private office," he'd lie. Maybe he'd toss in a line about "the missus." Don't we all need a break from our family at times?, he'd commiserate. And the sap would look around the room, at the fire roaring in the hearth that made the twelve-foot ceilings feel as if they dropped just above your head, and think that he was seeing something real, seeing who the Malfoys were at home.  
  
Just like the rest of the house, it was a well-constructed mirage. Hermione hated it.  
  
To Draco’s credit, he didn’t feed her any lines about the room being his father’s favorite or some tale about him learning magic here. He just sat down in one of the over-stuffed navy chairs and pouted. For the first time that day, Hermione felt back on solid ground.  
  
The Draco who had appeared at her house, in pitch black robes better suited for a Death Eater raid than a social call, was unknown to her. He seemed more man than sixteen year old. And, that Draco charmed her mother, and seemed interested in her safety. His magic melded with hers. That person was an adult, generally. And the Draco Malfoy she had known? He was a boy—a teen boy with an overinflated ego and a ready sneer. He was always prepared to knock her down, and besmirch her intelligence, her magic, her family. That was the person she had known. Looking at Draco now, his body folded in on itself with the exception of his chin which seem to thrust out directly at her, a slash of white against the black of his outfit, she was relieved that the boy she knew was back.  
  
“So, we have to win the war,” Hermione said, seating herself in the chair opposite his. It was her turn to sit up straight and put on a façade. Her spine didn’t touch the chair.  
  
Draco snorted and relaxed deeper into the cushioning beneath him. “Do you like your house? The Dark Lord enjoys it. And your mother seems to as well.”  
  
“My mother is polite,” Hermione responded.  
  
“Interesting that she raised you then? Hermione Granger’s a rude little brat.”  
  
“Is this a good use of our time? Our limited time before the,” Hermione paused, before plowing ahead, “Dark Lord comes back here.”  
  
Draco flew from the chair and began to pace. “You’re very inconvenient, Granger. You and your family. What was your plan, before all this happened?”  
  
It was Hermione’s turn to fold in on herself. “I had planned to obliviate my parents. And send them to Australia. After Dolohov almost killed me this year, it seemed… wise.” She rubbed absentmindedly at the scar on her chest.  
  
Draco turned on her, his hands coming to rest on the arms of her chair, his forehead nearly touching her own. “If you did that, you’d never get them back.”  
  
“Can you… move?” Hermione wriggled, trying to back further into the seat, further away from his probing gray eyes.  
  
Draco nodded shortly and resumed his pacing. “The Dark Lord isn’t interested in you, you know. Outside of your connection to Potter. He underestimates you.” He paused and looked at her for a moment. “He underestimates your commitment to the cause. Muggle will always choose muggle, et cetera.”  
  
Hermione wondered if he was speaking for himself. “I am committed to both. My magic and my principals wouldn’t allow for anything else.”  
  
“Your magic is warm.”  
  
Hermione blushed. She wished she could put out the fire in the hearth without plunging the room into murky near-darkness. “I don’t wish to talk about that.”  
  
“You’ll be my wife.”  
  
“We’re sixteen.”  
  
“Sev-en-teen, Dad. Time turner, Daad,” he pulled out the words, mocking her. “You will be my wife. You know that much, don’t you Granger?” His eyes swept over her.  
  
Hermione’s nails were objects of sudden interest. “Let’s talk about my parents.”  
  
Draco crossed to the a large wooden desk that sat at the end of the room. He rifled through a few drawers, before removing a piece of paper. He crossed the room and shoved it into her hands. She looked at the familiar script—Professor Snape’s handwriting?—with an address in Italy. “We’re sending them to the Continent. Secret kept, and all.”  
  
“A home of yours?”  
  
Draco shrugged. “Does it matter?”  
  
Hermione glared at him. “Of course it matters. Of course it matters that I know where my parents are sent.”  
  
“Australia is rather large.”  
  
Before she knew it, Hermione was crossing the room, hand raised. Draco grabbed her wrist before it could ever connect to his cheek. “It is not our home,” he said, tucking Hermione’s hand into his own. She ignored the feeling of his thumb rubbing against her knuckles. She ignored the cool breeze that seemed to calm her ire. “I cannot tell you who owns it. We will have to tell the Dark Lord about our connection, and, I thought it best, if your parents were not in a Malfoy property.”  
  
“You’re bound to secrecy.”  
  
He nodded and released her hand. Hermione felt the loss keenly. “What are we to one another?”  
  
Draco crossed the room to collapse in a chair again. “Our magic is tied. When I need to call on your magic, I will have it. When you need to call on mine, the same. It is not dissimilar to veelas.”  
  
“You’re a veela?”  
  
“Granger, don’t be stupid.” Draco rolled his eyes. “If I were a veela, don’t you think that you would have noticed by this point? All the girls drooling and that shit?”  
  
Hermione blushed again. “Well, what is it?”  
  
Draco rolled his shoulders. His hand extended towards her and then dropped in mid-air. He began to pace again, shoving her towards a chair as he passed her. “Sit down. You’re distracting me.” Hermione did as she was bade. “On a Malfoy’s first birthday, his parents bring him down to the center of the property—where the leylines converge—and participate in a blood ritual. They cut your hand, and you scream because you’re a baby and they push your hand against the grass and some rot. I don’t know. My father told me that when you’re pregnant he’ll go over the specifics with us. This ritual shows the Malfoy commitment to the land and to magic and connects them with all the Malfoys who have come before and those who will be there in the future.”  
  
Hermione glanced toward the ceiling, as she felt Draco’s gaze come to rest upon her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach protectively. “Get on with it.”  
  
Draco snorted and began pacing again. “On their majority—Malfoy, not Ministry. Sixteen. Just in case a father dies or something? I’m not sure. Something to keep the vaults safe.” Draco laughed derisively. “Anyway, on his majority, every Malfoy who participates in the ritual is given a gift from magic. Supposedly, these gifts are to help the Malfoy family help the magical world. Or, something. I thought it was bullshit. Before. Now I don’t. Obviously.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Over the last few generations, these gifts have been rather… vague. My father, for example, has never had an investment go bad. Is that a gift from magic? I don’t know. It’s something. His father, Abraxas, could supposedly charm anyone he met, resulting in the Malfoy’s current political power. And Abraxas’ father could spot a liar from rooms away. And his father—”  
  
“I think I get it.”  
  
Draco turned his head away from her, and paced towards the other side of the room. Hermione thought he might be blushing. “Right, right. The last time a gift was this… specific… was generations ago. In 900. Aetius Malfoy came to his majority and found that he could find and pull water from the land and sky, allowing us to create a large reservoir and well for the property during a drought. It saved the family. We’ve never had this soul magic before. A water wizard, yes. Before that a parseltounge, one metamorphogus, an earth wizard… But, not this. This is…. new.”  
  
As if a bell had sounded in another room, Draco and Hermione both stood. “Your parents?”  
  
Draco grabbed her hand and smiled at her. The smile seemed genuine, but the room seemed intimate. “You can feel it. You felt the shifting of the wards.” He kissed her knuckles briefly, as he opened the door to the den.  
  
Hermione blushed, but didn’t remove her hand from his. Perhaps this room engendered true intimacy after all. “Does your father spend much time in this room?”  
  
Draco didn’t question the change in subject, as he pulled her back towards the foyer. “Hates it. Good wards though. Father only goes there to do business with people who like a bit of back slapping and good boy-ing.” Hermione looked at her hand in Draco’s and wondered if she’d ever be able to tell truth from fiction.


	3. Chapter Three

**CHAPTER THREE**

Narcissa looked down at her blue Georgette skirt, noting the darkened hem. There wouldn’t be time to clean it, not before her new… what was she? A daughter-in-law? A daughter? A burden? Whatever she was, Narcissa would be greeting Hermione Granger, a person of sudden interest to her, in a robe that had ash on the hem. She suspected the girl wouldn’t notice the slight, having been accustomed to Molly Weasley’s company for years, but Narcissa would know that she had committed it. It was best not to begin an alliance with a faux pas. Narcissa frowned as she considered the faux pas that the girl herself would inevitably commit. She turned towards her stern-faced husband. “Lucius, I’m worried.”

“‘Worry’ is not word enough to describe my current mental state,” Lucius responded, leaning on his cane more for support than fashion. “We had plans, Narcissa.”

“And now we have new plans,” Draco inserted himself, both conversationally and into the room. Narcissa noticed her son’s hand, clasped in that of the muggleborn girl’s. He was, to her eyes, already devoted to the concept of Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger, for her part, seemed less convinced. She entered the room with her chin high, but one could feel the fear radiating out from her in waves. Her brown eyes were too wide, her pupils fairly dilated. “May I present, Hermione Granger.”

Hermione nodded to Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. Based on Draco’s greeting to her own father, she suspected the polite thing to do in pureblood company was to curtsy but she’d rather lose her legs than curtsy to the man who almost killed her friend with Tom Riddle’s diary. “Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy,” she said, shortly.

“Perhaps we should have this conversation… elsewhere?” Narcissa took stock of the floo room, without furniture or ornamentation, except for the giant hearth.

“I think that would be wise,” Lucius responded. He stepped past the young couple, offering an arm to his wife, and opened a door on the right side of the room, revealing a feminine parlor with high windows and bright white furniture. He sat himself and his wife on a Rococo couch upholstered in a pink toile. Draco pushed the seats opposite the couch closer together, and sat himself down. He did not release Hermione’s hand. Hermione thought, with a fair bit of trepidation, that Draco did not trust his parents much more than she.

“My parents—”

Narcissa let out a hiss before smiling a bit too widely. “Let us not discuss all that. All those ugly muggle things,” she said, laughing. It was a twinkling, hollow sound.

Hermione blushed, feeling both furious and humiliated. She looked down at her shoes. All she seemed to do today was look shame-faced. It was as if she had turned into a different person. Three weeks ago she was meticulously planning to ruin her relationship with her parents so she wouldn’t have to worry about them in the approaching war with Voldemort. Even three hours ago, she was herself. She, at the very least, had been throwing shoes and remotes at her childhood tormentor. But now she was blushing, eyes downcast, as Narcissa Malfoy chastised her. She raised her gaze to Narcissa’s, prepared to shout or yell or something to make her feel as if she was her own again. And, then she saw the portrait in the dark brown frame.

The frame didn’t match the room, which was bathed completely in tones of light pink and rose and ivory white. Hermione brushed her hair behind her ear as she tried to surreptitiously take stock of the space. There were no other portraits in the room. And this portrait was not of a Malfoy. Hermione knew in her very bones. She wasn’t sure if it was her newfound connection to the Malfoy family, and their magic, or the woman’s non-Malfoy looks that made her know it. But the woman, with her dark hair and square-tipped nose, was not a Malfoy. But she was very interested in the conversation in the reception room.

Narcissa, with her twinkling laugh and dig at muggles, was not having a conversation. This was something, but a conversation it was not. Hermione listened to the clock on the mantlepiece for a few beats before smiling widely. “Yes, Mrs. Malfoy. Let us not speak of muggle things. So gauche,” Hermione said, squeezing Draco’s hand within her own. He squeezed back. She felt his magic brush against her own. She felt…comforted.

“It is as I told you, Mother. Hermione is very understanding of the gravity of our connection, of the opportunity that it gives her to escape her previous position,” Draco said smoothly. “I know our Lord will take issue with her… heritage but we must bring the issue before him. The magic between us could be a boon to our cause.” Hermione let the word “our” vibrate through her, and give her strength as she stumbled through her next half-lie.

“Yes,” she said. “I wish nothing more than to be accepted in this society. I understand that my… background… is not ideal, but our magic…” She gestured vaguely, unsure what to reveal and what to hide. The woman in the portrait leaned forward, eyes gleaming with hunger.

“I am sure, at the very least, we can extricate you from the humiliation of muggle parents,” Lucius said, his back ramrod straight. “Would you be willing to do that, girl?” Hermione nodded. Her throat was so dry she feared it would close.

“We have taken care of it this very afternoon,” Draco said, punctuating his statement with a besotted smile in her direction. Hermione did her best to smile back at him. Her eyes watered. The woman in the portrait had her hands over her mouth. To hide a smile? To muffle a laugh?

Narcissa clapped, and laughed the same hollow laugh as before. “Oh, dear. Our Lord will be pleased at least to see a mudblood with some initiative.” Hermione lowered her head, as if in humiliation, but she didn’t want the woman in the portrait to see her wince at the slur. A moment passed in silence, and Hermione figured it was her turn to speak again.

“You think so? Really?” she asked, imbuing her voice with as much wonder as she could manage. “Will he meet with me?” Narcissa’s laugh was so shrill it might break her bones.

“I wouldn’t go that far, girl. But, with your willingness to rid yourself of the chaff and your connection to our son, I do not think he will kill you on sight. And that’s a victory for you,” Lucius interjected. Hermione tried to smile. Draco squeezed her hand again.

“Uncle Severus is a halfblood you know,” Draco said to her. His tone was reassuring. Hermione thought she might vomit. She just kept smiling. She wondered if her teeth would crack.

“Narcissa, perhaps we can discuss this in the dining room? The hour grows late and I am famished,” Lucius said, rising. He held out his arm for his wife to take. Narcissa’s laugh sounded again, raising the hairs on her arms.

“The girl may be a mudblood but she should not sit at our table dressed as one. She and I will find some suitable clothing for her to wear, and then we shall meet you there.” Narcissa did not hesitate in grabbing Hermione’s arm and rushing her out of the room. Draco and Lucius followed after.

The play was over, Hermione hoped. She held her own hand over her mouth. She didn’t want to ruin all her hard work with a sob.

* * *

 

Narcissa did not speak to her as she directed Hermione towards what she supposed was Narcissa’s bedroom. Hermione rushed to keep up, to not trip over her shoes, to not fall to her knees on the oriental runner in the hallway and sob for hours. She could feel Draco’s magic but it was far away, no longer close at hand. Was this all a trap? Were they going to kill her? She was fairly relieved when the doors to Narcissa’s enormous bedroom flung open, revealing a room bathed in mint green. Hermione did not see any portraits. Narcissa shut the door quickly behind them, and grabbed Hermione to herself. Hermione breathed through her nose, willing herself not to struggle in the embrace. Narcissa’s magic flowed over her, faint but she could feel it. It felt like Draco’s but cooler. Not a breeze, a chill.

Narcissa pushed Hermione out from her chest but kept hold of her arms. She glanced at Hermione from the crown of her head to the toes of her feet. “You did very well, Miss Granger,” Narcissa said. Her voice was deeper, by an octave at least, from the tinkling sound in the reception room. Her skin looked paler. Her touch was more desperate. “We need to get you dressed.” Narcissa moved away from Hermione, to open a door that lead to another large room. It was, Hermione supposed, a closet given how many pieces of clothing it held.

It also, to Hermione’s great relief, held her parents. Her parents had taken to their new status as homeless muggles hiding in a closet in very different ways. Jennifer sat on the floor, surrounded by robes that Hermione suspected cost a small fortune. Penny and she were speaking in low tones, about magic and pureblood culture. Richard, on the other hand, stood ashen in a corner. In his hand, he held a lamp. Hermione rushed to grab him about the middle.

“Your father felt threatened so I told Penny to bring him a lamp. That’s what you were going to use to kill what is likely our future son-in-law, isn’t that right, Richard?” Richard went to lower the lamp but Penny touched it before he could set it on the floor. It vanished with a pop. Jennifer rose from the pile of clothing, as if it were her god given right to tear through another woman’s closet.

“You have beautiful clothes,” Jennifer said to an open-mouthed Narcissa. Jennifer extended her hand. “I am Dr. Jennifer Granger. Hermione’s mother.” Narcissa looked at the hand before her, but did not take it. Hermione peered at the interaction from the safety of her father’s arms. She doubted Narcissa had ever shaken hands before. Jennifer grabbed Narcissa’s hand in her own and pumped it up-and-down a few times. Narcissa narrowed her eyes. Hermione extricated herself from her father’s embrace and, for a brief moment, wished Draco were there.

“Mrs. Malfoy, these are my parents. Penny hid them in your closet.” Hermione gestured to her parents. This was all so absurd. Of course, these were her parents. What other muggles would be in Narcissa Malfoy’s closet in golfing gear?

“I see,” Narcissa said, cooly. Hermione thought to reach her magic to Narcissa’s own but thought better of it. “I am Narcissa Malfoy.”

“These wizarding names,” Richard grumbled to himself.

“We’re really very grateful that you’re sending us to Italy,” Jennifer continued, ignoring all the tension in the room. “We love Italy. Much better than Hermione’s plan to send us to _Australia_.” Jennifer shivered.

Hermione paled. “You knew?”

“Hermione, I’m always telling you that you leave your books everywhere. What am I to think if you’re bookmarking pages on memory spells and leaving around maps of Brisbane? I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“I never thought you were—" Hermione began before she caught her mother’s look.

“It is up to mothers to see that their children do not kill themselves in this war. I am pleased to know you have taken an active interest,” Narcissa offered. Her gaze seemed to travel between Jennifer’s bright pink polo and intelligent eyes.

“Hard to avoid taking an interest when one of you almost murdered my teen daughter,” Richard shouted.

Both women ignored him.

“I would like to speak to you about that, Narcissa,” Jennifer said, her broad smile still on her face. “Penny has made it very clear that we will be involved with one another for some time, and I think it best if we discuss—with your husband and Draco, of course—the best way forward.”

Narcissa nodded carefully. “I do believe that is wise. Perhaps, you can help me find something suitable for Hermione to wear to dinner?”

“Richard,” Jennifer called her husband's attention to her. “Would you be a dear and get out of here?” She looked at her husband and thought better. “Perhaps Hermione should accompany you. Penny will take you...” Jennifer looked to Narcissa.

“Draco and Lucius are in Lucius’ study. Penny will take you there.” 

Jennifer smiled. “Yes! You can get acquainted. Perfect. Narcissa and I have important work to do here. Without prying ears or eyes.”

And so a gobsmacked Richard and Hermione Granger were grabbed body and soul to a different part of the manor.

* * *

 

Draco could feel Hermione’s magic on the periphery of the study. He wished he had a way to tell her not to come in here. His father had, in his rage at the new circumstances facing him, just taken his cane to the top of his desk, knocking his papers all over the floor. A fretful Denny was attempting to pick them up before Lucius could find a way to damage them further.

“It is not ideal, Father. But I think she carried herself commendably,” Draco sighed.

“I do not care, Draco. I know you… the magic… but this is not!” Lucius stopped mid-sentence and collapsed in the chair behind his desk. “How are we going to get out of this?” He put his face in his hands. He was, to put it mildly, a wreck.

Hermione was mid-sentence when she appeared in the study. She was too embroiled in her own upset to pay any attention to Lucius Malfoy, groaning into his hands behind a large oak desk.

Richard Granger, too, had no time for the Malfoy men. He made a beeline for the bar cart in the corner of the room and poured himself a healthy glass of whatever brown liquid was available. Upon hearing Lucius’ pained groan, he politely poured a second glass and left it on the desk before he collapsed on a leather couch in front of the fireplace.

“Your mother and my mother! Speaking!” Hermione croaked to the boy who was her alleged soul mate.

“Can no one in this room speak in complete sentences?” No one answered Draco as they all let out their own moans and, in Hermione’s case, squeaks. “How are we going to defeat the Dark Lord when no one here can string a sentence together?”

Draco crossed toward the bar cart. Richard took a moment out of his misery to resume his role as a father, albeit to the wrong child. He sat up from his previously prostrate position on the sofa. “You’re sixteen, young man.”

Lucius looked up from his own glass. “Yes, listen to… whatever”

“Richard,” Richard shouted, downing the rest of his drink in a single gulp.

“Richard! And keep away from my firewhiskey!”

Draco rolled his eyes and grabbed squeaking Hermione’s hand within her own. They may all be killed shortly by the Dark Lord, but their fathers were getting along better than he would have ever thought possible. He felt hopeful for the first time in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments! I am glad you like it. :)
> 
> I am going to try to update once a week.


	4. Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

In 1990, Charlotte Roche joined the botanical society's steering committee. It was already a hard year. Hermione had just gone off to school, leaving her parents behind with nothing but a newspaper that had moving pictures and whatever books from Flourish & Blotts she had not been able to fit in her school trunk. At the time, Jennifer was consumed with her desire to connect to something, anything. Hermione and she had been so connected, despite their differences, and now her child—her only child—was in a place that felt more like a very put together illusion than anything else. She knew her daughter existed, was in Scotland, and was learning magic, of all things, but, on a day-to-day basis, Jennifer had a hard time proving that to herself. 

She was planning, as she had done when her father died, to throw herself into the botanical society. But, then Charlotte Roche moved to town. Jennifer hadn't encountered a woman like Charlotte in years. 

Charlotte was proactive about her negativity. Her main talent in life was empty and expected disagreement. She disagreed about the monthly meetings with the head organization. But offered no alternative. She disagreed with the curriculum for the Sunday outreach class. She disagreed with the watering schedule for the front garden. She disagreed. She disagreed. She disagreed.  She was an incomprehensible woman in a year Jennifer was having a hard time understanding generally. Hermione's left over texts from Flourish & Blotts were nearly gibberish to her, a woman with a doctorate, and Charlotte Roche's mindless hatred of everything she did was much the same. It was enough to make one pull their hair out. 

But Jennifer had beautiful hair. So, she waited. She waited for the book on transfigurations to make more sense. She waited for Charlotte Roche to leave an opening to bond, at least enough to entice her to agree on something, anything. 

And, so came the day when Jennifer overheard Charlotte talking to the one botanical society member she seemed to like, Agnes, about one thing she hated, _Beetlejuice_. It seemed an odd thing to hate, to Jennifer. But Charlotte's son had rented it from the local video store and... well, she hated it. She hated the color scheme. She hated the acting. She hated the music and the actors and Michael Keaton and the concept. 

Jennifer had found her opening. She called her own watering schedule "the Michael Keaton of gardening plans” and suggested something only mildly different. Charlotte had laughed (more a snort if Jennifer was feeling uncharitable) and everything had changed. Charlotte Roche was suddenly in her corner. As she looked at Narcissa Malfoy over the piles of silk robes she and Penny had been, frankly, pawing at, she thought about Charlotte Roche. But Narcissa was a kinder woman than Charlotte, or, at least, on a tighter schedule. Jennifer didn't have to wait to discover her _Beetlejuice_. Narcissa just offered it up.

“So she was planning on sending you to _Australia_ ," Narcissa said, thumbing through one of the cabinets in her never-ending closet. 

Jennifer nodded. "You absolutely cannot trust a country where crocodiles roam freely, I always say." The women shared a look. 

"When the war started again, Lucius discussed sending Draco to America, of all places. I absolutely put my foot down."

"We tried to send Hermione to France but her language skills are singularly abysmal," Jennifer responded sympathetically. The two lapsed into a mutual silence for a moment, as they contemplated their children only a floor away. "How are we going to win this war, by the way? I have been trying to keep up from home, and of course purchased a few historical texts when I was last in your world but it isn't the same, is it?"

Narcissa's back stiffened at the implication that Jennifer knew anything at all. "It certainly isn't the same!"

Jennifer moved to a different part of the closet. She had a doctorate! She wasn't about to be patronized to by a woman named Narcissa. Not that Jennifer was in love with her own name. But it was not _Narcissa_.

When Draco Malfoy had swanned into her house five hours ago, Jennifer accepted without question what Hermione had told them: they were soulmates. Jennifer let a teen boy burn down her house, for god’s sake! But Jennifer found that this was the best way to deal with magic. You either accepted it unequivocally, or not at all. Jennifer could have spent years picking the reality of magic apart. A special gift for flying unassisted of an airplane? Acceptable. But the ability to turn into a cat? Impossible. Dividing things in that way could lead you down the path of insanity. You just had to accept it wholesale. Her daughter had a different and additional sense, and the Grangers just had to accept that. (Although Jennifer prided herself on doing a much better job accepting it than Richard.) You couldn’t explain, rightly, how it feels to see color. So, how could she expect her daughter to explain how it is to feel magic? Some things were beyond the average person’s capacity for description. But, despite her limited understanding, she had tried. She read every book her daughter left lying around the house, she kept up with the paper, she even sent the occasional letter to the deeply annoying Molly Weasley. So, no, she wasn’t about to be patronized by a woman named Narcissa.

Jennifer dragged herself out of her thoughts as she heard Narcissa sigh from across the apartment-sized closet. “You never want your children to grow up.” Narcissa was a Charlotte Roche, Jennifer decided. She needed to wait for the right moment. “It is hard. They go off and create their own lives. Make choices that you don’t understand.” Narcissa dragged a light blue robe out of a cabinet, and laid it upon the ottoman that dominated the center of the room. Jennifer thought it would look quite nice on Hermione. “Draco’s magic is connected to your daughter’s but, more than that, he is _pleased_ by the situation. One should never turn down a gift from magic, but I can’t help but think that he’s willed this gift into being. I do not understand it, to be frank. I don’t understand why he’d want to associate with someone from…” Narcissa’s hand fluttered in the air like some particularly racist birds. “She’ll never truly understand what it is like to live with magic.”

“And you don’t understand airplanes or the beauty of a biro, but he’ll manage well enough,” Jennifer cut in. She couldn’t wait for her _Beetlejuice_ moment when she saw the writing on the wall—this woman was about to engage in some good, old-fashioned discrimination. “Children make choices that confuse, baffle, and enrage but then they turn out fine. The best thing you can do, as his mother, is to make sure that you’ve done everything in your power to have things go in his favor.” Jennifer mentally rolled through all her Wizarding references. She could manage to connect, god damn it. “When packing a potions kit, you wouldn’t leave out a bezoar.”

You could hear a pin drop, as Narcissa turned to face, and make eye contact with, the dentist. Her gray eyes narrowed. Jennifer couldn’t tell if she was hiding her shock in anger or the other way around. “Come again?”

“A bezoar? It is the antidote to most poisons, I believe?” Jennifer tapped on her brow, as she tried to pull this analogy into the station. “The war is poison for both the wizarding and muggle worlds. And we, Mrs. Malfoy, you and I, are the bezoar.” Jennifer laughed. “We certainly can’t trust Richard and your husband to save anyone. Richard’s apparent best defense against wizards and teenage love is threatening to toss a lamp. A lamp!”

Narcissa didn’t laugh, and Jennifer placed some silver shoes by the ottoman. She could wait this out, and the shoes would look lovely with the robes.

“You’re certainly a surprise…”

“Jennifer. Dr. Jennifer Granger.”

“Jennifer.” Narcissa pulled the robe over her arm, and picked up the shoes with two fingers. “You are certainly a surprise, Jennifer.”

Jennifer shook her head. “I am simply a woman buoyed about on the constant seas of change.” She ventured a smile at Narcissa. Narcissa did not smile back. No matter. “So, this war.”

Narcissa frowned. “The war. I hope you know, if this hadn’t happened—this connection between your daughter and my son—I would be trying to murder you right now.”

“And I hope you know I would never let you,” Jennifer returned. “What’s done is done, Narcissa. Would you like to focus more on petty threats or actual issues?”

“You’re much like your daughter, at least as Draco describes her,” Narcissa offered.

Jennifer let out a genuine laugh at this. “Oh, don’t tell Hermione. It would kill her.”

“It may very well be a boon,” said Narcissa. “If Hermione was more like you.”

Jennifer took a seat upon the now-empty ottoman. “Well aren’t you a flatterer? Tell me, what were your plans for the war. Before this? Leave out all the ‘we might kill you et cetera et cetera’ if you please.”

Narcissa sat upon the ottoman as well and, in what Jennifer took as a supremely good sign, toed off her shoes. “Lucius made promises to the Dark Lord long before I married him. And, without the ability to kill a man who claims immortality, my only plans were for Lucius to fulfill those promises while doing his best to stay alive. As of late, the Dark Lord has dragged Draco into this mess. Which I cannot abide. So, I was planning on trying to escape the country. Leaving my husband behind—if you could keep that between us, that would be ideal. But the Dark Lord branded Draco, so…” Narcissa sighed. “I had no plans at all. If things got too bad, I was contemplating suicide.”

Jennifer let out a low whistle. “Not a great outcome.”

“And your plans? For the war?”

“My foremost plan was to stop my daughter from sending me to Australia,” said Jennifer, toeing off her own shoes in solidarity. Narcissa didn’t strike her as a hugger. “And, after that? I write to Molly Weasley occasionally but the woman thinks I am a moron. ‘ _War? What war? Oh dear I think you are confusing the muggle and Wizarding papers! There’s no war here. I suppose you’ve heard about Hermione’s accident_ ’” Jennifer paused her impression here to clarify. “By ‘accident’ she means a grown man named Dolohov trying to murder my daughter. As if I don’t know the difference between attempted murder and the youthful exploits of falling out of a tree or whatnot. ‘ _But you needn’t worry, dearie. All is fine. Can you send Arthur an old fellytone_?’ The woman asks me to send her telephones all the time. Can’t get the name right. Useless. Useless woman.”

“The Malfoys have a long-standing feud with the Weasleys, you know.”

“Bully for you! Fellytone. Ugh.” Jennifer shook her head. “Needless to say, I also had no plans.” It was her turn to flatter Narcissa now. “You seem a woman good at making plans.”

“As do you.”

“And so we shall.”

And, with that, they summoned Penny and demanded to be reunited with their husbands. They left their shoes behind. 

* * *

 

Narcissa was disconcerted by how bright the woman’s shirt was. Was this how all muggles dressed? And the length of her skirt! Lucius was going to have an aneurysm.

Jennifer Granger was surprising. The woman had let Narcissa’s teen son burn down her home and now she was standing here, defenseless, just talking. She just kept talking and, to Narcissa’s shock, kept saying things that made sense. Bezoar? Narcissa felt ill.

She became distinctly aware that if Jennifer Granger had been born a witch, they may have been friends. Or rivals. Either way, she would not have ignored the woman with her wide, intelligent blue eyes and her atrociously bright shirt. Narcissa had never even seen a color like it before. She wanted to ask about it, but… the woman was a muggle. Muggles had nothing to teach witches. They were… muggles.

As Penny popped them to Lucius’ study, Narcissa realized her feet were still bare. Was this how it was going to go from now on? A muggle woman in a terrible shirt and too-short skirt going around managing the Malfoys? Is this what her daughter was like? Were they doomed or saved? Narcissa wanted to lie down for several days.

She had been the one making plans. For days, they had planned to bring the muggles here while the Dark Lord was in Romania, doing whatever Dark Lords did. Torturing people? Eating foreign pickled soups? Who knew? Who cared. The Dark Lord briefly left the residence, and it was on Draco to burn down the muggle house and bring the muggles here on their way to Italy. Narcissa had told Draco to stupefy them. Lucius had told Draco to imperio them, but Narcissa pointed out—rather reasonably, she thought—that Hermione would likely resent the use of an unforgivable.

But Draco had done neither of those things and, now, Narcissa had been cowed by a muggle. It was all very troubling. Most troubling of all was, perhaps, how resilient the woman was. If Narcissa were in the same position, thrust into the muggle world without any of her comforts at her disposal, she surely would be just as bad with things as Jennifer Granger seemed to think Molly Weasley was. She had not the faintest idea what a fellytone was or why Jennifer said it with such disdain. In the same situation, she’d be a wreck. And, not at all a wreck, here was this muggle woman managing her. It was all so troubling. She had, of course, been prepared to kill the Dark Lord but she didn’t think… she just assumed… it was very, very troubling. Perhaps Lucius was right to be worried. Their world was about to change more than she ever expected.

She had no time to think on it. Lucius was moaning. Richard was moaning. Draco was, unsuccessfully, trying to keep the room together. And, Hermione Granger, the girl she worried was too like her mother, was squeaking. Narcissa could not mope. She had to bring everyone—including the troubling muggle woman—in line. She did allow herself a moment of comfort, however, at the thought that Hermione would be easily managed, more father than mother.

“Hermione, stop squeaking. Lord,” Jennifer said, sitting down next to her husband. Narcissa noted Jennifer’s husband (she’d forgotten his name) quieted the minute she entered the room. The woman was managing. Narcissa sighed deeply to herself.

“Hermione,” Narcissa said, handing Hermione the robes and shoes, “these are for you. Your mother and I selected them. You will be staying with Severus Snape for the foreseeable future, and it is imperative that you wear wizarding robes. We shall have some made.”

“Narcissa!” Lucius’ voice, cracking as it reached a register Narcissa had not heard from her husband before, broke through her thoughts. “Are you not wearing shoes?”

She tamped down the urge to rub her temples. “Let us all…” She gestured toward the sofa and sat down. She needed to get herself together. Jennifer was smiling serenely and Narcissa wasn’t about to let herself be beaten in her own home. Her dismayed confusion curdled into anger in her stomach. When Narcissa was a child, she was always counted upon to be the placid sister. Bellatrix burned like the sun in her anger. But Narcissa was colder, more calculating. When Narcissa looked at Jennifer Granger and her strange outfit, she understood her sister.

“Yes, come sit, Hermione,” Jennifer said, patting the seat next to hers on the leather couch. Narcissa wanted to scream. “We need to formulate some kind of Enigma Machine.” Narcissa held her breath, waiting for Jennifer to explain. She wouldn’t be the one to admit her own ignorance. No Malfoy would.

“What’s an Enigma Machine?” Draco asked, crossing the room to sit next to his now-disappointed mother. Lucius still sat at his desk, face plastered against the felt top.

“Lucius, get over here,” Narcissa snapped. Lucius groaned but did not move. Narcissa did not even want to look at Jennifer Granger now, who had her husband silently sitting next to her like a particularly well-trained dog. Infuriating.

“An Enigma Machine is a code machine. It encrypts messages, so that you cannot read them without knowing the special way to read them. Some particularly heinous muggles used them in the Second World War,” Hermione began before turning towards her mother. Her bright-shirted mother who paid too much attention to the wizarding world, and did not seem to be off-balance by suddenly being thrust into it. Narcissa swore she could feel her pulse behind her right eye. “Um, wizards don’t really use codes. They are…”

“No subtext, just text?” Jennifer said, indulgently. INDULGENTLY!

“And muggles will never know true power,” Narcissa said through gritted teeth. All faces turned towards her. Jennifer’s smile deepened, if anything. Narcissa so wished she could kill the woman.

“I am getting the sense that Narcissa doesn’t much like me,” Jennifer said to her daughter, _sotto voce_. “But she’s trying for your sake, sweet. And I think that’s lovely. Can we use telephones? Arthur is in charge of the Misuse office and he doesn’t even seem to know what they are so presumably Vold—“

“The Dark Lord!” Hermione shouted, interrupting her mother.

“OK, fine. Yes. Well, presumably _his holiness_ won’t know how to use one,” Jennifer finished with an annoyed sigh. “Is this Snape the same as your potions professor?” Hermione nodded and Jennifer hummed. “Draco, do you know if your professor has access to a telephone?”

“He’s a halfblood?” Draco offered. He hadn’t the faintest idea what a telephone was. Jennifer frowned.

Narcissa saw her moment. “Perhaps it would be best, since your daughter is, in fact, part of the magical and not muggle world, to use a magical form of communication?”

“We can use coins,” Hermione ventured. “We did that for… well… I’ve done that before.” Narcissa felt her shoulders relax.

“But then we can’t much send messages to you. Can we, pumpkin?” The Granger husband seemed to have regained his voice. Narcissa could see Lucius’ unmoving body from the corner of her eye.

“Why would we need messages from _you_?” Narcissa heard the words before she had time to censor the tone. Oh well. Hermione bristled next to her mother, her back straightening and her brown eyes widening. Draco, too, stiffened. This supposed Malfoy gift was going to result in Narcissa’s death.

“Mother,” Draco whispered to her. Jennifer, however, did not seem perturbed in the slightest. She smoothed her incredibly small skirt over her legs.

“My in-laws hated me. Some days, I’d say they still do,” Jennifer said. “Richard’s parents are working class and my parents are… not. They thought I was a little too posh. A little too self-assured. But someone hating me has never stopped me before, has it?” Jennifer shrugged. “Narcissa,” she said, before pausing and swiveling around to look at Lucius, still unmoving at his desk. Narcissa felt her skin heat. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “If you do not want our help, that is your prerogative, of course. But if you try to keep me from my daughter, or from communicating with her, I will ruin your life.” Hermione gasped.

Narcissa’s laugh was almost unhinged. Draco winced. This, indeed, was the sister of Bellatrix Black. “I’d like to see you try, you little muggle wretch. I could take my wand right now—“

“Enough!” Lucius stood up from his desk with a roar. “Listen to… whatever her name is. We won’t keep her from her daughter. We… Death Eaters do not know anything about the muggle world and,” he swallowed dryly, “that may help us, in the end.” Narcissa couldn’t bring herself to look at Jennifer, to see the triumph in her eyes. “Tell us about your muggle things.” He tried to regain as much of his dignity as possible as he limped towards the bar cart.

“Too right, Lucius,” Richard responded, moving his arm from around his wife. “You two. Get along. Now isn’t the time. You can snipe at one another later.”

Lucius nodded, handing Richard another glass of firewhiskey.

Jennifer’s whole body seemed to relax, and she leaned into her husband. “Muggles have many ways of communicating that do not include owls. Owls tend to be a little… noticeable,” Jennifer said. Richard laughed into his glass. “Perhaps, we can use ham radio if telephones aren’t an option?” She looked to her daughter.

Hermione nodded, contemplating it. “That might be a good option. I can buy a smaller setup and… yes, I think that would work. I mean, wizards do have the wireless so, presumably, radio waves do not poorly interact with magic. Unlike, say, telephones and light bulbs.”

Jennifer nodded. “Very well. I will leave that to you, Hermione. But I do think if there is the option you should ‘invent’ a wizard telephone. You’d make a fortune.”

“Hermione’s future wealth is secured,” Draco cut in, back straightening. Narcissa patted his hand. She could rely on her son, after all.

“No such thing as too much money,” Richard disagreed, leaning across the space between the two couches to knocking his glass against that of Lucius. Lucius didn’t protest, and both men downed their glasses in quick succession. Lucius gamely poured Richard another and Narcissa felt her plans to distance Hermione from her muggle family evaporating into mist.

“I’d like to meet this professor. Before we entrust Hermione to his care for a summer,” Jennifer said.

Hermione and Draco groaned in tandem.


	5. Chapter Five

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Severus Snape had grown up in the muggle world with a wizarding name. Severus was one of those unwieldy, flouncy monikers that would get one beat up in any hardscrabble muggle pub. But, when he entered the wizarding world, Severus learned that his was a boring name, the type to get you forgotten rather than remembered. He wasn’t even the only Severus during his time at Hogwarts. (Notably, Severus Silworth, class of ’78, and Severus Port, class of ’80, had gone on to careers that Severus Snape could only dream about.)

It was easy for wizards (like Dumbledore) to forget that Severus Snape had grown up in the muggle world. He was good at fitting in. He was good at wearing robes and saying "Oh Merlin!" without giggling and using a quill. But he had grown up muggle, of course, with all that entailed. He had grown up with old spaghetti Westerns and rock music and the books of Sir Ian Fleming. So, when he became a spy he had expected so much more. Like so many muggle boys of his acquaintance, Severus loved James Bond. James Bond wore a tux to every occasion. His life was filled with adventure, women, and baccarat... and cleanly bypassed the actual reality of spying. As Severus himself discovered, the actualities of espionage wouldn’t make a compelling read. For real life esponiage was mostly tedium. And, Severus Snape’s life, up until now, had been tedious.

Spying meant saying yes to drinks you did not want to get. Spying meant reading every year-end wrap up missive from an old classmate, colleague, and acquaintance even when your eyes began to glaze over with boredom. Spying was keeping track of the potions stores of those you knew, recognizing patterns of behavior from what ingredients one bothered to keep on hand. Spying was a lot more paperwork than you’d expect. Severus had, in his duties as a spy, taken up the very boring mantle of group secretary.

And, in many ways, that tedium paid off. If you asked the Death Eaters who Severus Snape was, the majority of them would immediately say “a good listener.” Severus was the one who would always agree to go to drinks when your missus kicked you out. Wasn’t it Severus who took Avery to the pub and reconciled him with Selesta? It wasn’t McNair, that’s for sure. And when little Theo Nott fell out of a tree and broke his arm who whipped up Skele-Gro on the spot? Who listened to Mrs. Nott detail all her concerns about her little poppet? It wasn’t Lucius Malfoy. It was Severus Snape.

Sure, Severus didn’t have the most impressive magic. His spells were capable, but he lacked the imagination to create any particularly life-threatening jinxes. The Death Eaters couldn’t help but notice that any promise he showed at school was beaten out of him by the time he reached thirty. But, then again, being good at school and being good at magic weren’t always connected. Look at Dolohov, as everyone loved to say.

And, sure, Severus wasn’t the best talker. His stories were boring and tended to mostly revolve around the Hogwarts break room. He never had a story about a lady or even any exciting tales of classroom hijinks. One wondered if he noticed the students at all, for how little he talked about them. Even Lucius—who was just a governor of the school and not a teacher—would bring the boys a story about Draco getting one over on a Gryffindor or general hell raising. Severus’ stories were so long and boring and besides the point that he couldn’t even bring the Death Eaters some small anecdote to remind them of the golden days back in Slytherin house.

But, at the end of the day, Snape just wasn’t an exciting or interesting or particularly talented man (outside of his capacity to brew quickly and competently). He was just always there. He was willing to have his ear bent when you were having troubles or just needed someone to listen. He was dependable.

Well, that’s what the Death Eaters thought. To them, Severus Snape was a vaguely dim but pleasant companion. A little bit of a sidekick. A little bit of a hanger-on.

To the Order, however? Severus Snape was the devil incarnate with a gleam in his eye and murder in his very bones. Dumbledore found Snape shifty and unpleasant. More porcupine than man, Snape had overheard him say more than once. Dumbledore didn’t like Snape’s unconventional jinx creations or well-stocked potions cabinet or constant long-suffering sighs. Dumbledore didn’t like Snape’s long hair or his rolling eyes or open hatred of puns. Snape once considered submitting a picture of Bela Lugosi to the Hogwarts yearbook and seeing if Dumbledore could tell the difference between him and the cinematic Dracula.

If anyone asked Snape (which no one ever did), about himself he’d say that mainly? He was tired. He’d tell them that espionage, to his experience, was a strange and occasionally tense mixture of customer service and general admin. And he was a man sick of both. He wasn’t an evil genius or a dim social leech. He was just a man who wanted to put his feet up. If he survived the war, he’d never do this kind of intense emotional work ever again. He’d find whatever job didn’t require you to speak to anyone, and he’d take it immediately. He had many a wonderful daydream about snapping his wand and going to work in a morgue.

Well, that had been his life. But the tedium part of spying came to an abrupt and rather neon conclusion when he was summoned to Lucius Malfoy’s study on a particularly sticky July afternoon.

* * *

Hermione couldn't believed she had squeaked. In front of Narcissa Malfoy no less! What did that say about the Grangers? Draco has said she would be his wife (a distressing thought at best, a mark for death at worst) and here she was squeaking like a gerbil or small bird. This would neither endear her to the Malfoys nor convince them she was not to be trifled with. She was a force, a person battle tested. And battle-tested persons did not squeak when in receipt of distressing news. 

At least, her mother seemed to be taking to the wizarding world swimmingly. Her father? Well, he was drunk. But, to his credit, it had mellowed him a bit. He wasn't squawking or moaning or anything any longer. He just was sort of humming some Eagles song. Embarrassing but not the worst.

Hermione tried to take in the Malfoy clan as they took her in. Lucius, like her own father, was at the point where he could only see her through one lilting eye. Narcissa Malfoy looked ready to murder. (And, she had confirmed the desire to Jennifer, so this was no passing feeling but perhaps a new permanent state of being.)

And Draco? Draco was glazed like a ham. His eyes were suspiciously bright as he glanced between Hermione and her mother. She could see the wheels turning in his head, even as his gaze distanced. Hermione shifted from one foot to another. She had the distinct feeling that Draco was seeing some future version of her. He had, as many better men had before him, looked at Jennifer Granger like the sun shined out of her... well, Hermione didn't swear, not even in her thoughts and definitely not about her own mother. 

"I want to see a telephone," Draco declared, his gaze focusing. His gray eyes met Hermione's own for a brief but heart-stuttering moment. Before he turned away from her and flapped a hand as if waving her away. "And you should wear more blue."

His words shook the room, metaphorically. Hermione didn't bother to look. But she knew. As sure as she was standing in Lucius Malfoy's study wearing Narcissa Malfoy's old robes, she knew she had changed the Malfoy family forever. And, as her History of Magic textbook told her, so goes the Malfoys, so goes the wizarding world. 

* * *

 

Lucius Malfoy was many things: a cad, a liar, a consummate business man. But he was not, to Severus' knowledge, a lush. Sure, he engaged in the occasional tipple or, when amongst most intimate company, a true rip-roaring time. But he was not the type of man to indulge in spirits at 15:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. It was unseemly and Lucius Malfoy, above all else, strove to not be unseemly. 

And yet. And yet. Lucius Malfoy, with only one eye open, had poked his head in Severus' fireplace. And, in a voice that was more slur than posh dictation, he requested an audience. Now. 

Severus wasn't sure what he was expecting when he showed up in the Malfoy residence. Perhaps Lucius has cheated on Narcissa and was subsequently discovered? (Severus doubted this possibility since everything about Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy's relationship seemed to indicate that they had some mutual understanding over what constituted fidelity.) Maybe the Dark Lord was dead? Or, rather worse, maybe he was _more_ alive? Was that possible? For an immortal snake man to be more alive that immortal?

The possibilities were endless and each more upsetting than the last. Severus hoped against hope that Lucius had just embraced alcoholism. (Bad for Lucius, neutral for the wizarding world.) If you had bet Severus all the money he had, both wizarding and muggle, he would never have guessed what he found in Lucius Malfoy's study.

* * *

 

Severus followed a stumbling Lucius through an eerily quiet Malfoy manor.

“All your portraits are asleep, Lucius?” Severus asked, his voice deliberately filled with an awed sort of idiocy.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh,” Lucius slurred, spinning himself around so fast that he fell into the wall. “We can’t taaalk now, Sev’rus. We got to wait for Narssissa and…” Lucius waved his hands around as he meandered down the hall, occasionally bumping into a wall or table. “You see. You see.”

Lucius spun around and grabbed Severus by the shoulder. He leaned his head close to Severus’. “I don’t want to al-arm you. But,” Lucius looked around the hallway for a moment, “we’re going to die.”

Severus sighed. _Great._ He did not remove Lucius’ arm from his shoulder. At least, this way, he could keep track of the weaving, bobbing man. He stunk like a distillery. “I’m sure that’s not true, Lucius. You’re always so smart.”

Lucius tapped his finger against his temple. “Narssissa’s smart. And she said it. We’re going to die. Whoops!”

“Is Narcissa in your study?” Severus asked, extricating himself from Lucius’ arm as he prepared to open the study door and faced, what Lucius assured him, would be his doom.

“‘Course. She there, she there. All the shes.” Lucius grabbed the study doorknob before Severus had the chance. “You see.” Lucius snorted. “You SHE.”

He opened the door to reveal a pale Narcissa, an uncomfortable Hermione Granger, a beaming Draco Malfoy, and an unknown man and woman in... golfing gear? The man in golfing gear was snoring, his head resting on the woman’s shoulder. She was wearing a highlighter pink shirt that seemed to pulse in the the lux navy of her surroundings. Severus felt his entire future change with the slamming of the study door behind him.

Severus had known, of course, that Draco Malfoy’s eyes wandered a little too often to Hermione Granger in potions class. He was never quite sure if that was because the girl could never stop raising her hand, or if he was harboring a crush. He supposed _that_ mystery was solved, he thought grimly as he looked at the hand-holding teens.

“You she!” Lucius yelled again, braying. He laughed and walked over to the snoring man, kicking at the couch to rouse him. “Wake up, Rich’rd. You she!”

“I… see,” Severus responded. “This is what you think will kill us.”

Narcissa snorted. “Think? There are _muggles_ in my house, Severus.”

“Hello!” The woman in neon called from the couch. “We’re the muggles!”

Hermione groaned. “These are my parents, Professor Snape.”

Jennifer rose from the couch, her husband collapsing on his side without his wife to hold him upright. “Dr. Jennifer Granger,” she said, smiling widely. “And, the drunk one who is not a wizard is my husband, Dr. Richard Granger.” Richard raised his hand, still face down on the sofa.

Lucius giggled. “You _she_!” He poured himself another glass of fire whiskey. Richard bounced his face off the couch, a man possessed, as he heard the clinking of the bottle against the bar cart.

“"Nother for a friend, Lucius?” Richard asked. To Severus’ ears it sounded like Richard said “Lou, shush.” But the man in question himself appeared to get the message.

“‘Course!” Lucius nodded, concentrating hard as he tried to pour a glass.

Narcissa let out a faint noise that sounded somewhere between a growl and a sigh. “We’re trying to get these muggles to Italy. And, hopefully, you’ll agree to house Miss Granger for the summer.”

Severus shook Jennifer’s hand, trying to process all that was before him. How to play this? Miss Granger and the Malfoys had very different conceptions of him. He settled on just repeating them. It had served him well enough in the past. “Italy?”

Narcissa rubbed her temples. Perhaps he had chosen incorrectly.

“Should I explain, Narcissa?” Jennifer asked, her voice saccharine.

“Don’t even speak to me, you worm,” Narcissa responded shrilly. Severus had never known the woman to be shrill. It didn’t suit her.

“No no! Get along! Along!” Lucius shouted, from his place near the bar cart. His arm was wrapped around Dr. Richard Granger. Narcissa looked fit to be tied.

“Granger and I are soul mates,” Draco said, cutting through the various tensions in the room. “Granger and I are soul mates, so I secured a secret kept home in Italy for them to stay in.”

“Soul mates?” Severus repeated.

“Are you a parrot?” Narcissa snapped. “Stop repeating like a fool, and do something to get these muggles out of my sight!”

“I don’t think it is all that surprising that the man might be confused,” Jennifer offered. Narcissa growled honestly this time and stalked to the other side of the room.

“Malfoy sec’ret!” Lucius shouted, his drink sloshing over his hand and dripping on to the floor.

“Perhaps we should sit?” Hermione said, glancing between her mother and Narcissa.

“Don’t try to play hostess in _my_ house!” Narcissa shouted, her register reaching ever higher. No one paid attention to her, and Severus took Miss Granger’s suggestion. He felt that, yes, indeed, he needed to sit down. He couldn’t help but notice Draco’s hand never moved from its position in Miss Granger's. “On his majority, every Malfoy received a gift.”

“And Miss Granger is yours?”

“A gift,” Narcissa snorted.

“I think it is sweet,” Jennifer said, smiling beatifically.

“Mum! Stop needling Mrs. Malfoy,” Hermione chastised.

Jennifer rolled her eyes, but collapsed on to the couch. “Hermione, I love you. You’re my daughter, but you have no sense of fun.”

“Granger and I are are soul mates. I can feel her magic, she can feel mine,” Draco pressed on. “So, we’re… we’re going to have to win the war.”

“We?” Severus echoed. It wasn’t a put-on at this point. He just found himself without words.

“Yes, the Malfoys.”

“ _And_ the Grangers,” Hermione inserted. Everyone ignored the slight growl from across the room. Draco rubbed one of Hermione’s knuckles.

“And… Dumbledore, Miss Granger?” Severus asked, stilling the room.

Lucius and Richard, with one eye each, peered at Hermione. Draco let her hand go. Jennifer and Narcissa even appeared to put off their blood feud for a moment.

“Dumbledore,” Hermione said, softly. To herself. No one breathed for a moment, as she thought. “Hang Dumbledore,” she declared firmly.

Severus felt as if he could hear the tension leak out of the room a bit. His airways felt a little clearer.

“Hear, hear!” The drunk men in the corner chorused together.

“I have a free guest room,” Severus conceded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kind comments. I love reading them, so keep commenting lol


	6. Chapter Six

**CHAPTER SIX**

In many ways, Liz’s relationship with Rus was the best one of her life. He had a job, unlike her last long-term boyfriend, Trent. But it was more than that. He was incredibly kind, and— _oof_ —his emotional intelligence sometimes knocked her out. Like that time after Beth’s hen party when she was drunk and yelling about his cooker and he knew, through some sort of emotional osmosis, that she wasn’t mad about the cooker at all but scared about turning thirty, about being left behind. And the presents he bought? She cherished them. Every day, she looked at the little robot toy he had bought for her desk and was reminded of the night they spent together at the sci-fi movie marathon. He didn’t even like sci-fi movies when he agreed to go.  
  
Rus was wonderful, in so many ways. But Liz wasn’t sure she could do it any longer. She was thirty two. She wanted a house, a husband, some peace. Sure, she loved Tabby, the cat they shared between them—shuttling it from her flat to his house every few weeks—but that wasn’t enough. She wanted a baby, with her riotous hair, his dark eyes, and ten little toes. Or, barring that… Because she knew. She knew it wasn’t the time for a baby. But, barring that, she at least wanted to get rid of her flat.  
  
The rent on the one-bedroom that she rarely ever visited was an albatross around her neck. She understood all the reasoning for keeping it. It was safer. _She’d_ be safer. Not to mention, it was good for him to have a place where no one knew him, where his past didn’t haunt them. It was good for them both. But, Christ, it was getting expensive. And, it was lonely for her sometimes. To fall asleep without him in this apartment that barely felt like hers any more. All of her favorite clothing was located in the drawers in his house, not hers.  
  
Whenever she slept over her own place, she’d have to wear one of her least favorite sweaters to work. Specifically, the lilac one her mother had bought her when she went home two Easters ago. She kept meaning to burn it.  
  
That Easter had been terrible. Rus hadn’t been able to come with her and her mother couldn’t help but bring it up. Over. And over. And over. Even now, she could hear her mother’s faint Jamaican accent chiding her. “I’m not sure this boyfriend exists, Elizabeth. You say his name all the time, but I’ve never seen him. Now David? David I know!”  
  
Ugh. David. Her sister’s husband was the world’s smarmiest bank manager. And the way he looked at her that day? Revolting. She hated him. And she knew he was running around on Jessica. Liz had bumped into Sue Perkins at Tesco the week before, and Sue couldn’t wait to tell her about it. Sue had always been a perfect combination of nosy and terrible. Sue almost cried she was so thrilled to share the story about watching David kiss someone who was distinctly not Lucy outside of the pub last weekend.  
  
Rus wasn’t running around, no matter her mother’s heavy handed implications. But Liz couldn’t very well explain what was really happening. She couldn’t explain to her mother that her boyfriend, while real, was fighting a magical war and had to miss things occasionally. Things like Easter. And, that one time he refused her mother’s invitation for him to come to church. But a war—magical or otherwise—did not keep him away that time. Just general distaste.  
  
Liz tugged her sweater down as she left the bus. This damned sweater. It washed her out and always rode up, too short for her long torso. That was it. She’d do it this weekend. She’d bring up the flat situation, and she’d burn this sweater. Or, they’d have to break up. That was the only solution.  
  
Liz sighed, as she readjusted the shopping in her arms. She knew the threat of leaving him ran hollow. She wasn’t going to break up with Rus, even though perhaps she should. Perhaps she should find her own bank manager and bring him to church and Easter and Sue Perkins’ Christmas party (which was less of a party and more of a very transparent bid for neighborhood-related information gathering).  
  
She tried to imagine what that life would look like, and it didn’t come easily. She had never been able to rely on someone (flat situation notwithstanding) like Rus. She had never been able to be so completely open with a boyfriend before. Everything with Rus, despite a war raging around him, was comfortable. She knew he’d be a good father, she knew that he was going to win this war. (Or she’d find whoever this magical despot was and just shoot him in the head. She had made that suggestion several times, to no avail. Some magic thing kept him from being able to be shot in the head? Seemed implausible to her, and if Severus didn’t win the war by her thirty-sixth birthday she’d insist on testing out her theory.) No, separating from Rus was as impossible as carving off her left arm. She was sure that, if the circumstances forced her into it, she could do it, but it would be incredibly painful and the circumstances would have to match. Paying her rent on her flat wasn’t enough reason.  
  
But, she wouldn’t bring this up when she spoke to Rus, of course. She’d say in her most serious tone that something needed to change. That they had to speak to his boss, or someone, about magical protections on the house that would allow her to move in without worry. She had written a list of possible solutions, and they had to, at least, make a good faith effort on every single one. Rusty couldn’t allow her life to be ruled by his paranoia.  
  
Liz nodded to herself as she pulled her keys from her jacket pocket. Yes, they’d discuss it over the mediocre bottle of wine she had picked up from the shop. Something would change.

* * *

  
“You have a cat?” Hermione shouted to the other room where her professor was… well, she wasn’t sure what he was doing.  
  
She hadn’t meant to scream in her professor’s home but… frankly, it surprised her that he had a cat. And so many plants. Who knew that the potions master had a green thumb? She supposed it was not wildly out of the question. Most magical families owned at least one animal, and potions and herbology were intimately tied. But she wasn’t sure that Gerbera daisies were used in any potions.  
  
“I can’t believe this is Snape’s house,” Draco commented baldly. Hermione nodded in agreement.  
  
“Leave Tabby alone!” Snape’s voice carried from the other room.  
  
Draco and Hermione shared a look between them. _Tabby?_  
  
“Maybe we should sit down? And wait for him?” Hermione said quietly. Draco collapsed onto the loveseat which was covered in a variety of fleece throw blankets. “I’m surprised you haven’t been here before.”  
  
“Well, not to shatter your expectations, Granger,” Draco said, “but everyone in the Death Eaters thinks Snape is kind of an idiot. My father hangs out with him, sure, but it is a pity thing.”  
  
“That’s rude.” Hermione frowned.  
  
“Thank you.” At Hermione’s confused look, Draco smiled. Hermione tried not to blush. A smile changed Draco’s face entirely. Unsmiling, he looked like every other Malfoy. But smiling? His eyes lit up, and he looked like someone who wasn’t raised by the magical version of Stepford residents. “Well, considering that I was worried your mother would kill my mother the minute we reached Italy—or vice versa—rude is really the kindest thing you can say about a Malfoy.”  
  
“Ugh. My mother. My mother is…” Hermione put her head in her hands. “My mother likes to wind people up. And your mother is… very wind-able.”  
  
“Your mother has a death wish, you mean.”  
  
“I don’t mean to shatter _your_ expectations, Malfoy, but my mother would not go down without a fight.” Hermione smiled. “She’s been in a fist fight, you know!”  
  
“Your mother? Fighting?” Draco whistled low. “Like mother, like daughter. You Grangers are full of surprises.”  
  
“You’re the surprising one,” Hermione demurred. “Soul mates.”  
  
Draco sighed and collapsed further into the couch. “How do you feel about… all this?”  
  
“Confused. Scared. Hopeful,” Hermione said. “I mean, a day ago I hated you.” She thought for a moment, her lips turning from a frown into what, in other circumstances, would be called a pout. “And now… I don’t want you to leave. I don’t know why you have to, honestly. Snape is your godfather.”  
  
“Don’t pout,” Draco teased. Hermione felt her cheeks flame.  
  
“Well, how do you feel?” Hermione asked, rather more angrily than she intended. Her face grew a few degrees hotter and Hermione looked down to curb further embarrassment. She played with the hem of the robe’s overly long sleeve. She briefly wondered how much the ensemble cost.  
  
“Happy,” Draco said, his voice pitched low and quiet.  
  
Hermione had wondered about herself for a few years now. As the girls in her dorm laughed and spoke almost relentlessly about the Gryffindor (and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and Slytherin) boys, Hermione herself felt no such compunction. She had forced herself into an affection for Ron. He was tall and, she supposed, handsome enough. And, most importantly, he was close at hand. (Harry was never an option. It would be like declaration romantic intentions for a wounded bird.) But it all rang so hollow. She never felt the butterflies that Lavender frequently claimed. At twelve, after what she considered a woefully incomplete birds-and-bees chat, Hermione had done some reading and come across the word “asexual” and she wondered…  
  
But now, she felt it. It was a feeling low in her pelvis as if she had just crossed a carpet in very fuzzy socks. Or, like a small series of shocks like when she tried to use the wonky plug in her parents’ upstairs bathroom. This, she thought. This was the feeling they had all been speaking about. This was attraction. This was arousal. One word—happy—opening an entire new world, turning her into an entirely new person. It was here, in her teacher’s strangely cozy sitting room, that she transformed from a sexless being concentrated mainly in thoughts to a person with a body and a heart and a desire to use both.  
  
Thousands of thoughts flitted across her mind in that moment. Should she cross the room and plunge her hands into his hair and her lips to his? Should she not look up at all and, instead, excuse herself to throw cold water on her face? Should she run away to the Weasleys’ home and forget that all of this (this dream, this nightmare, whatever it was) ever happened? She felt her body begin to ready itself to stand, as if acting autonomously of her mind.  
  
But neither she nor her body had time to act on any impulse (whatever the impulse would have been) as they heard a door open and close, and an unknown woman’s voice.  
  
_Rus?!_

* * *

  
_Fuck._  
  
When Severus agreed—under duress, he might add—that Hermione Granger, annoying know-it-all and breathing liability, could stay in his house, he had not considered that it was the 16th of July. He should have. He should have swallowed the information that his double agent days were numbered, that his most annoying student and his erstwhile godchild were magically bound, and cross-referenced this with the calendar and realized that it was not only a Wednesday but the 16th of July. But now Liz, the one bright spot in his life, was calling out to him from his— _their?_ —kitchen and only feet were standing between her and a pair of unstable teenagers, neither of which he particularly trusted.  
  
He swore to every god he could think of, and a few he made up, that if either of them touched a hair on the head of the only person worth talking to in Cokeworth if not the whole of England, he would not only boot them from his home but skin them and then turn them both into small throw rugs. He took a deep inhale, willing his heart to a slow stutter. Liz could handle herself. Liz could handle herself. She was good at almost everything (making quiche being one notable and bizarre exception).  
  
He should have known it was the 16th of July and, if he had intended on using blood magic to ward his bedroom, he should have done it before his pupils were in his sitting room. But you had to finish what you started with blood magic, or you’d lose, at best, a finger and, at worst, all of the blood in your veins. He shouldn’t have made the rune so large. At least, he thought, scooting across the hardwood on his knees, the rune for “joy” wasn’t complicated.     
  
Liz could handle herself, he thought again.

 

* * *

  
“Who in the hell are you?” Liz demanded to know, brandishing the £16 bottle of Cabernet at the two strangely dressed teens in Rus’ sitting room. Were these Death Eaters? She always expected Death Eaters to be…. taller. Less teenaged, at least. Although, she supposed, if you were going to get someone to go on a suicidal death mission for a snake-faced fascist, teens would be a good place to start. When she was in secondary school, she once watched Roger Gibson eat an entire cigarette just because someone had said it couldn’t be done. So, following a would-be despot, would not have been out of the realm of possibility and, if Roger’s classroom conduct were any indication, he would have made a very willing fascist. OK, she thought, Death Eaters are teens.  
  
But the tall boy was shoving the girl behind him so, maybe they weren’t Death Eaters. Rus was a teacher. Would magical teens break into their teacher’s home to—she glanced around, noting no destruction or even a misplaced book—sit placidly in the sitting room as a prank? “I repeat: who in the hell are you two? I want names. Now.”  
  
The girl poked her head around the boy, who frowned deeply at her. “Hermione,” he whined.  
  
“Hermione,” Liz repeated. “Check.”  
  
“Yes,” said the Hermione in question, stepping forward, despite the boy’s pulling on her sleeve, to offer her hand. “I am Hermione Granger. And this is Draco Malfoy, my…” The two teens glanced at each other for a long and awkward moment. “My…”  
  
“I’m Draco,” the Draco in question concluded, to put an end to Hermione’s dithering. (Dray-co? What an awful name. And Liz had an aunt Gertrude.)  
  
“And what are you doing here?” Liz asked, never lowering the wine bottle. This mid-tier red was supposed to fix all her and Rus’ problems but, instead, she would use it to threaten children. _Bleak. Bleak. Bleak._  
  
“They’re simply here to ruin our life.” Liz whirled around to see Rus, no worse for the wear if a little tetchy, rubbing his hands clean on his handkerchief. Liz ran towards him, nearly slapping him in the back with the bottle of Sainsbury’s best.  
  
“Oh, god. I thought maybe they killed you,” Liz breathed into his chest.  
  
“Us? I’ll have you know Professor Snape is a very good wizard,” Hermione’s nasally and, frankly, pedantic voice came from across the room.  
  
“Knock it off, Granger. You can’t win house points here,” Draco responded. Liz couldn’t help but think that they both had incredibly petulant voices. If they had children, would anyone—besides dogs—be able to hear the register at which those children spoke?  
  
She had no more time to think about the tenor of teen voices, however, as Rus enveloped her in his arms and lead them to sit down on the larger sofa in the living room.  
  
“We need to talk,” Rus said, his voice perfectly professorial.  
  
“Yes, we certainly do.”  
  
“We didn’t catch your name,” Hermione said, leaning forward on the loveseat. Draco’s hand hovered inches above her arm, as if he was trying to figure out if he should pull her back.  
  
“And you won’t,” Rus responded, waspishly, leaning forward himself, as if to block Liz from their view. “Not, that is, until you swear an Unbreakable Vow.”  
  
Draco stood up, suddenly, to stand in front of Hermione. “Malfoys aren’t in the business of swearing Unbreakable Vows to Snapes. We’ll find a place for Hermione to live elsewhere.”  
  
“Taken a look at your own arm recently, godson?” Liz couldn’t see Rus’ face but she was almost certain that it held the same sneer it had taken on that time he had stepped in dog shit. She was right. Teens were Death Eaters.  
  
“We’ll do it. Or, I will at least, Professor. I’ll swear the Unbreakable Vow.” Draco groaned. “Draco, you must understand what it is like to have a life no one can know about.” Hermione, Liz thought unkindly, had a voice built for brown nosing.  
  
Draco collapsed back in the love seat. Rus sat back to reveal Liz, and the Unbreakable Vow—such wrong-headed nomenclature, surely it should be the “breakable but fatal vow”—was quickly completed.  
  
“I’m Liz. Rus is my boyfriend and this,” Liz had a brilliant thought the likes of which only occurred to her after two pints or when staying up past three in the morning, “is our home.” Liz turned towards Rus, her smile brilliant and her mind focused. “I’ve decided I’m giving up the apartment. If your home is fit for teen fugitives—or whatever this situation is—than Tabby certainly doesn’t need a one bedroom.”  
  
Rus smiled and sighed and leaned back to sink into the couch cushions. “Just one big happy family, eh Liz?”  
  
“Well, I don’t know about these two. But you and me? Certainly.”  
  
Hermione and Draco had the good sense to adjourn to the kitchen as the two adults began to turn towards one another in what would surely be a long and kiss-filled embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed chapter. I hit writer's block (the block being that I wasn't writing). But I am still working on this, and have no plans to abandon it. But I won't promise weekly updates as it seems I can't keep that promise.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your comments. I really love reading them.


	7. Chapter Seven

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 

Richard had never wanted a life of leisure. He wasn’t good at having time to himself. He needed something to do. Always. His usual day, back when things could be usual, would start at five o’clock with a brisk one-mile run. (Well, walk. But it was _something_.) Then he’d come home, shower, and make a breakfast for himself and Jennifer. He’d be at work by half past seven. He’d work until half past four. He’d made a habit to get in an hour at the local driving range, before coming home. Jennifer made dinner, and he’d clean up. Afterwards, he’d work on one of his several hobbies: woodworking, ham radio, or crochet for an hour or two. In bed by ten. No wasted minutes.

But, now, he was adrift. Yes, he was in a home that would be more rightfully termed a villa than a house. And, yes, he had time and money to explore the sleepy town on the Mediterranean in which he found himself. He had finished all his useful work—setting up an antenna on the roof of the building and getting every ham radio item he’d possibly need—within the first few days of arrival. And, since then, he’d had nothing but down time. He had been to every bakery in town, tried every cheese. So despite two hours of daily swimming, he found himself with too much time on his hands. And too much time meant too much worrying.

He had been worried about Hermione ever since she was born. At first, it was the usual worries. Am I supporting her neck? Is she walking on time? Is that cough indicative of a disease that will ravage her body and kill her or just a common cold? Will she be safe riding a bike? Will she make good friends?

But then, at eleven, they discovered that Hermione wasn’t just an ordinary girl (not that she ever had been—top of her class, with all Jennifer’s moxie) but a witch. And then he had other worries to contend with: a world he could not see, a place he was not invited into, and a wizard hell-bent on murdering his daughter. His daughter faced various dangers that he had no way of understanding or foreseeing: trolls, coma-inducing snakes, militia members bent on destruction. His only escape was working. If he put in more hours at the dental practice, that gave him less time to worry about his daughter. From September to December and from December to May, Hermione felt less like his daughter (brave, kind, the only one who would watch _Star Wars_ with him) and more like a… concept (terrifying, mysterious, fantastical).

And now? Now she was magically bound into some sort of teen marriage. Jennifer had pointed out to him several times that no one mentioned marriage and that Narcissa Malfoy seemed like she’d rather eat a toad whole than allow Hermione to marry her son. (Did wizards eat toads? Maybe he’d have to come up with a new turn of phrase.) And, she was right. The Malfoys—well, Richard thought, Lucius seemed like a good bloke—didn’t seem keen to bind their teen son in matrimony. At least, not to Hermione Granger.

But Richard wasn’t stupid. Jennifer always got the credit for being the brains of the couple. She was socially savvy, she was quick on her feet, and had a tongue that could cut a man in half. But Richard wasn’t stupid. Top of his class, Richard learned the cultural values of the world he entered when he joined the professional class. And he played them to a tee (pun intended). Everyone always remarked on the similarities between Jennifer and Hermione. But, upon seeing the Malfoy home, upon seeing the world that Hermione would enter when she married that shockingly blond-haired boy, Richard knew that he and Hermione would have more in common than she ever expected soon enough.

Richard wasn’t magical. He knew that. He had picked up Hermione’s wand once, after her second year, and it felt lifeless in his hand. He considered breaking it, in that moment. Hermione couldn’t be murdered by a wizard if she wasn’t one herself. But he knew what a betrayal that would be, and had tucked it back in with her school items. He was not a wizard. He was just a man.

But, even so, Richard saw the magic between Hermione and her blond suitor. They drifted towards one another, circling one another. The connection between them was palpable. Richard fairly moped (much to Jennifer’s annoyance) for weeks, wondering if this was how he’d lose his daughter forever, for weeks. But, finally, after three weeks of silence, an owl dropped a letter with only a frequency listed upon it. As Richard turned on his ham radio, and turned the dial, he felt at peace for the first time in weeks.

* * *

 

Hermione rushed up from Snape’s basement, which was now also her base of communications. She almost tripped over Liz who was drinking a cup of tea in the kitchen. “I did it!” Hermione crowed triumphantly.

Liz nodded and tipped her mug in Hermione’s direction. “So did I.”

Hermione frowned, confused. And then, taking in Liz’s comfortable jumper and denim, switched emotions to annoyed. Why did she have to run around in wizarding clothes, here at what was for the time being ostensibly her home, when Liz was living here? Surely, if a Death Eater dropped by they’d be less outraged at her clothing and more outraged at Liz’s presence. Liz kicked out a kitchen chair from the table with her foot, able to recognize at this time when the teen girl was about to have a full-on strop.

“Sit down,” Liz declared. “Get yourself a cuppa.”

Hermione’s frown deepened, as she followed the older woman’s instructions. She settled herself primly on the edge of the wooden seat.“What have you done, Liz?” Hermione asked, politely.

“Quit my job,” Liz said, sinking lower into the seat. “But you first - what did you do now? Revolutionize eye of newt or something?”

“Har har,” Hermione glowered.

Tabby meowed somewhere in the distance as the silence stretched between them. Liz took another sip of her tea. She had been waiting for this. Ever since Hermione arrived, she and Liz had been circling one another like angry cats. Liz knew why she was annoyed: she had hoped to move in with her boyfriend, not her boyfriend and a teen girl who thought she alone could save the world. Every night, as Rus arrived home from god-knows-where, Liz would pour two glasses of wine and hope to turn on the telly and maybe enjoy a program. But, no, like clockwork, Hermione Granger would come barreling down the stairs. _Professor, have you ever read Dagworth’s treatise on fennel in magical potions? Professor, come to the lab, I’d like to show you something! Professor, do you have any volumes on Veelas, on house elves, on housewives?_ On and on and on. It was turning Rus into a bear, Liz into her mother, and it was time to end.

The only respite they ever got was Draco Malfoy coming over and that was not respite at all, as the two teens tried to pretend that they weren’t making out in every cupboard and cranny in the house. Liz would never forget what she had seen when she went to put away her jacket. Fighting and kissing and fighting and kissing and fighting and kissing. It was exhausting just knowing all that teenage energy was in the same home as she.

“I don’t see why you get to wear muggle clothing while I’m stuck in these,” Hermione groused, picking up an arm to reference the enormous, ridiculous bell sleeve.

“Well,” Liz ventured, “I’d guess it is because I am a muggle and I didn’t go and get myself involved with some high-society wizard.”

“I didn’t get myself involved!” Hermione protested. Liz peered at Hermione over the rim of her mug, prompting the girl too blush. “Well, I don’t think so anyway. How is one to know that a first kiss between enemies is going to prompt some sort of magical binding?”

Liz shrugged. “I would be very annoyed myself if my first kiss—Denny O’Harrigan, for the record—and I were bound together for eternity. But I’m not magical.”

“Well,” Hermione conceded, “it _is_ annoying. Even when you’re magical.”

“I can’t imagine, but I understand the pain of being grounded.”

“I’m not grounded. No one here is my parent!”

Liz snorted. “That I know. I doubt your parents would let you two carry on like you do. My mother was a proponent of not letting boys in bedrooms. But, parent or not, we need to set some rules, Hermione.”

Hermione bristled. “I think my life is filled with enough regulations. From trying to escape a murderous wizard to being magically bound to my childhood bully, I know enough about rules.”

“None of those things have to do with ruining my night, every night.”

Hermione stood, incensed. “Well, apologies on my part for trying to save the Wizarding world. I know _you_ wouldn’t understand, but I’m trying to do something very important.”

“Rus is important, Hermione,” Liz responded evenly. This took the wind out of Hermione’s sails. She didn’t sit back down, but Liz noted her posture wasn’t quite so… self-righteous. “Rus spends his whole life trying to save the world. Whether he’s preventing Neville Longbottom—yes, he talks about him!—from killing all of you in class or doing the dirty work of two terrible men, he’s trying to save the world. He needs his home and—to be frank with you, woman to woman— _I_ need this home to be a home, not a place where the fate of the Wizarding world lives.” Liz winked at her. “You’re not the only one who wants to be swapping spit in cupboards around here.”

Hermione frowned. “Gross.”

Liz frowned back. “ _Groooooss_. Hermione Granger, I will never ever forget what I saw in that coat closet.”

Hermione blushed again, turning in a moment from imperious woman to teen girl. She collapsed back into the kitchen chair. “Well, I wish I could get out of these robes. I want to wear a jumper.”

“I’ll talk to Rus about it. And he’ll talk to Draco’s parents and we’ll try to get you some… dispensation or something. I’m not quite sure how this nonsense works. Feels a little up its own arse to me.”

Hermione snorted. Liz felt like she was seeing the teen for the first time. “It is up its own arse. The entire Wizarding World is. You should know that, quitting your job and all.”

Liz and Hermione shared a smile, understanding one another for once. “Only for now.”

“That’s what you say and then suddenly you’re wearing a blue robe and trying to figure out how to defeat You-Know-Who.”

“And we’re 100% sure we can’t just shoot him with a gun?”

“I’m willing to try.”

“Finally, a voice of reason enters this house.” Liz and Hermione slammed their mugs together. “So, Hermione Granger, my new friend, what is it you did?”

Silence—a different, sadder silence—blanketed the kitchen. Hermione lowered her eyes, willing her now-watery gaze to not result in full-blown tears. “I got the ham radio to work. I talked to my dad.”

Liz sighed. Yes, she found Hermione and Draco terribly annoying at times. But this wasn’t fair. None of this was fair, thrusting magical destiny and fascist egomaniacs onto teen-aged children. She crossed the room to fold Hermione into his arms. “I’m glad you two were able to speak.”

Hermione inched away from Liz’s embrace after a moment. She was again composed, her back straight, no longer the sensitive teen but the future high-society wife. “As am I.”

Liz kept hold of one of Hermione’s hands. “It isn’t fair what this world is doing to you. We’re going to get them. I promise.”

Hermione shrugged. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Liz laughed. “Never have, never will.” She squeezed Hermione’s hand once. “I have to tell Rus about my big decision. Why don’t you… see what Draco’s up to?”

Hermione blushed again. “Um, yes. OK. We’ll be… in my room?” She looked at Liz, questioningly.

“Like I said: I’m not your mom.” Liz gave her a wink and Hermione shut her eyes against it, not desiring to think of what “Rus” and Liz would get up to while she was getting up to her own… trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't stop writing about adults! But lots of Draco/Hermione stuff in the next installment. Also, apologies for the short chapter!


	8. Chapter Eight

**CHAPTER EIGHT**  
  
Draco tried to ignore how swollen his lips were. Hermione had gotten in touch with her dad which somehow led to her fighting with Snape’s weird muggle girlfriend which somehow led to her pushing him into a wall and kissing him senseless. But he couldn’t think about that right now. He hadn’t really been paying attention when she explained what the situation was. He was too distracted by her. By Granger. Or Hermione? GrangerHermione.  
  
Granger, he knew. She was a girl in muggle clothes—jumpers and those rubber shoes she wore and whatnot—but Hermione was a witch. His mother had chosen the nicest of wizarding clothes and… well, she looked wonderful. She was all straight backs and hauteur. And then there was GrangerHermione. She wore wizarding clothes and kissed like she was trying to suck his soul out through his mouth. He wasn’t sure _why_ she was kissing him so much, considering how angry she was with him all the time. But he wasn’t about to return a gift. And her kisses were a gift. His magic would surge through his body to meet hers and… he had to win this war.  
  
For the time being, GrangerHermione was a secret. Kind of? The Dark Lord knew that she was his... whatever she was. The Dark Lord knew that she was in his life. The Dark Lord wasn't going to worry about labels. Draco ran a hand through his hair. (Would Hermione consider him her boyfriend? Did he want to be a boyfriend? It was a worry for another day but definitely something to think about. If she brought it up, he wanted to have an answer.) And Snape had definitely told Dumbledore that he was housing the Gryffindor at Spinner’s End. He wouldn’t keep secret from the headmaster something the Dark Lord already knew.  
  
Everyone important on either side of the war knew what was going on: Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy were kissing. Well, maybe they didn’t know the ins and outs of it. But they knew: Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy were involved in a way that implied a certain level of romantic connection.  
  
So why in the hell did he need to keep her a secret? At least, that’s the justification he used to himself when he wrote the letter. He wasn’t… he didn’t say anything too bad, he thought. He just had to tell someone that he was kissing his childhood nemesis. Otherwise he would… well, what was he supposed to do! Pick up journaling!? Sure, GrangerHermione probably didn’t tell the terrible twosome that she was kissing the scion of Malfoy house but that was her business. And his business was that he wasn’t going to get a diary and instead he wrote a short, not-secret-filled letter to his best friend.  
  
It had all seemed so sensible until Greg actually showed up at his house.  
  
“What in the fuck, Draco?” Greg had shouted, as he stepped out of the floo. The shout had caused Draco to fall off his bed, which wasn’t the most powerful position from which to begin a fight. As he looked up at the upside-down vision of his best friend, Draco thought about the journals he could have bought.  
  
“So you got my owl?” Draco asked, with a slight grin.   
  
“What in the hell are you smiling at?” Greg roared down at him.  
  
“You? My best friend?” Draco offered. He tried to shrug, but it just resulted in a weird full body-squirm on the ground. Not ideal.  
  
“You think that this is funny? You’ve decided to throw your lot in with Dumbledore and that’s funny?” Greg began pacing.   
  
Draco jumped up at the implication that he was working with Dumbledore. “I did _not_ throw my lot in with Dumbledore. He can’t handle a school. How would he handle winning a fight with the Dark Lord?”  
  
Greg collapsed into one of his wing chairs. “Then what? You convinced her that you’re with Dumbledore but you aren’t? How did you even find her? It is summer! You went to a muggle house?”  
  
Draco paled. This was… too many questions. He looked at Greg. “This is too many questions.”  
  
Greg frowned, angry again. “Too many questions? You—Draco Malfoy—my best friend since childhood, son of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, future Death Eater—“  
  
Draco rolled up his sleeve. “Current Death Eater.”  
  
“So you’re telling me that you’ve been making out with Hermione Granger in her muggle house all summer and not once she has ever taken a look up your sleeve.”  
  
Draco frowned. GrangerHermione was definitely going to stop kissing him over this. “Um… yes?”  
  
Gregory Goyle wasn’t the smartest boy in school. He generally didn’t have much interest in talking to other people, outside of those he valued. He was constantly getting distracted during conversations that didn’t interest him. When Draco and he were children, a group of two, Draco had never noticed the boy’s total lack of interest. But when they got to Hogwarts together, Draco spent the majority of his first month re-explaining things to Greg. Draco was reduced to Greg’s unofficial secretary, alerting him to fellow students’ names and teachers’ syllabi. At some point, they had both given up. Greg spent most of his time in class trading notes with Vincent Crabbe, his childhood next door neighbor, while Draco tried his best to ignore them. Greg’s post-Hogwarts plans might have been low-pressure and low-effort (working the nightshift at Slug and Jiggers), but Draco planned to be Minister of Magic and the Minister of Magic didn’t fail his OWLs.  
  
But Greg was a good friend. Which is why Draco wrote him. And why Greg asked all those questions. Draco thought maybe he should have written Theo Nott. That guy was a tosser, and would never question the logic of this situation. Hell, he should have told Blaise except—when he got the address to Zabini’s Secret Kept property, he made a promise that he wouldn’t tell him any of the details. Blaise was determined to be on no side of the coming war. Coward.  
  
Draco’s judgments of his fellow Slytherins was cut short as Greg sneered at him. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”  
  
Draco sighed. “Come on, Greg! Ignore the specifics and focus on the heart of the situation: Granger kissed me.”  
  
Greg rolled his eyes. “Again.”  
  
“Again?! Again! We never kissed before! There is no again! She kissed me! She kissed me now! Not again!”   
  
Greg was unimpressed. “Your voice is raising. You act like I didn’t see that kiss in second year. After she was done being petrified. When you decided to kick up a fight with her and then she slapped you and then you kissed her. So, again.”  
  
“Again?!” Draco winced as his voice raised four more octaves.  
  
“Draco, knock it off.”  
  
Draco rolled over on the bed, burying his head into the coverlet. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect you to ask so many questions. I just wanted to tell you… I kissed Hermione Granger.”  
  
“Right,” Greg responded, in a tone that Draco was sure he’d take with a hippogriff if hippogriffs had the power of human speech. “But… we’re in the middle of a war and you’re a Death Eater and she’s whatever the opposite of that is called.”  
  
“She’s staying with Snape. My parents know.” In for a knut, in for a galleon.  
  
“So… she’s… a Death Eater now? How is The Dark Lord going to square that circle?”  
  
“I can’t answer that, but… trust me. It is fine.”  
  
Greg was not convinced. “None of this sounds fine. When your letters got… kind of strange, I figured that you might have taken the Mark or your dad was mad at you or something. I didn’t think that you had compelled Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor of Gryffindors, to switch sides in a war and move in with a professor that hates her just based off the power of your lips.”  
  
“It’s complicated! I can’t explain.” Draco stared up at his ceiling. His parents were going to kill him. Or the Dark Lord. Or Hermione. Either way, he was not long for this world.  
  
Greg groaned. Draco didn’t bother to turn his head, but he could hear Greg engaging in his favorite nervous activity. Whenever Greg got worried, he cracked his knuckles. Coming from a tree of a boy like Greg was, it always just seemed as if he was gearing up for a fight. But Greg didn’t fight. Not due to fear or a pacifist soul, Greg had just never cared enough to get into an argument. “You need to be able to explain.”  
  
Draco pouted. “Well, I can’t.”  
  
“You need to think of an explanation.” Greg’s face swam above Draco’s again.  
  
“I need to talk to my parents before I say anything else to you. Otherwise…” Draco dragged a finger across his neck.  
  
“I think Lucius and Narcissa are the least of your worries at this point, mate.” Greg smiled softly.  
  
Draco rolled over on to his stomach. “Well, have you been making out with anyone?”  
  
Greg turned away, as if to leave, but Draco saw the blush. “You are! Let’s talk about that, because that will surely be less complicated.”  
  
Greg groaned. “I’m not sure it is less complicated, but certainly less potentially deadly.”  
  
Draco shrugged. “Tell me everything.”  
  


* * *

  
  
It wasn’t based in any actual magical theory, but when Hermione journaled she used a biro. Quills were for magic. Biros were for writing out all her innermost secret thoughts. At least, this was the logic she used at eleven. Some of it was practical. Pureblood girls were generally terrible at reading biro-written block printing. Hermione knew the feeling. She had been such a fast reader at ten, and then she went to Hogwarts. When she saw the fancy, medieval-inspired script her mind just went haywire for a moment. It took her much longer, at first, to get through her work. The transcription spell was one of the first that she learned, copying impossibly confusing script into clear blue-ink block letters.   
  
But, as she looked at the list of pros and cons of kissing Draco Malfoy, she knew that her biro trick would be no help here. She have to burn the page up, using the muggle fireplace in Snape’s house, to prevent wandering eyes from seeing.   
  
The pros were limited in scope. First pro: Draco Malfoy’s magic was complementary to hers, creating a sort of deliciously full-body feedback loop when their lips touched. Sub-point: Her magic seemed to want her to touch him and this was a very satisfying way to do it. Second pro: She needed to get out her anger somehow and kissing the boy to whom she was apparently fated seemed like a low-impact way to do so.  
  
The cons, on the other hand, took up two pages. She wasn’t sure what to do about those, however. At the end of the day, this was—to a certain extent—out of her control. She and her parents had just up and believed Draco, they had burned down their home, they went to the Malfoy house and convinced the Dark Lord that Hermione Granger had helped murder her parents and… well, that’s it. There was no way to back away now, not without threatening the lives of upwards of ten people. (Hermione assumed. She counted at least nine people who knew that things were shifting, and she wasn’t positive but everything Draco had ever done indicated that he was not the best at keeping secrets. For a Slytherin, his emotions were always spilling everywhere.)  
  
Without anything to resolve the cons, outside of a very illegal use of a time turner, she might as well get some kissing out of the deal. Especially since she, apparently, had her jailer’s blessing.  
  
That wasn’t exactly fair to Liz, a woman just trying to live her life with her… boyfriend. Hermione shuddered. Thinking of Snape as a boyfriend was a fairly terrifying thought. Like if a Sphinx suddenly introduced you to their wife. But she and Liz had recently reached something of an accord. Despite the… boyfriend… issues.  
  
It was annoying, to Hermione. Every day, she’d see this muggle woman going to work and living her life and shopping at Tesco and all the things that Hermione herself had thought she would do, until she turned eleven and thought she’d shop at magical Tesco. But, now that life was lost to her. Liz sometimes rang her mother up on the phone, having open conversations and loud arguments about normal things: Liz’s sister, what was on telly, a book one of them had read for book club. Even if this war worked out. Even if everything went as well as it possibly could, Hermione would never have that life.   
  
Yes, Hermione could reach her parents on the ham radio now. And that was great, lovely. But what could they talk about really? Her parents had never—and would never!—see Hogwarts, and having to constantly remind them of the difference between asphodel and ashwinder eggs did not bridge the gulf of their lives. And that gap would never be filled. Hermione felt her adulthood sitting upon her shoulders. She wondered if Liz knew what she would be giving up by even approaching the Wizarding world. Yes, there were things to be gained, but also so much that had to be given up.  
  
Hermione shook off her maudlin thoughts and glanced at her list again. Draco—she admitted to herself the minute that his magic touched hers in the field in Wiltshire that he would never really, truly be Malfoy again—despite himself seemed like something to be gained. He was a prat, sure. And his parents were true nightmares. But when his lips touched hers, with his magic gently wrapping around her like a warm blanket? She was sure that there was something better to be found. It was hard, to get away from her muggle mindset, thinking of all of this as idiocy and hormones. But it wasn’t. It was magic. Despite pages of cons, the pros were just too powerful to ignore.  
  
She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the way that his hair had brushed hers as he wiped away the tears she had shed in frustration at life. She remembered how hesitantly he had tilted his head forward, asking for a kiss rather than demanding. And she answered, slanting her lips across his, pulling his lower lip between her teeth. She pulled away for a moment to yell at him, to gain some equilibrium, to remember her life in May. And he had just smiled and kissed her again. It was overwhelming. It was something beyond teenage antics. She crushed the list in her right hand and tucked it in her pocket to burn later.  
  
She didn’t have time to contemplate kisses. She had a letter to write. She pulled a piece of parchment from the sheath that Narcissa Malfoy had owled over, along with an expensive self-inking quill.  
  
 _Dear Harry and Ron,_  
 _I’m doing well! My parents have decided to go on a short holiday, so I have the house to myself for once…_  
  


* * *

  
  
Ron squinted into the sunlight as he lowered his broom. Was that an owl?  
  
“Oi! Ron! Game’s not over yet!” George shouted at him, as his feet skidded to a halt on the wet grass.  
  
“Georgie boy, I think lil’ Ronnie has a letter from his _giiiiiirlfriend_ ,” Fred shouted back.  
  
Ron couldn’t see it, but he could hear the grin in George’s voice as he yelled back to his twin. “ _Hermione and Ron sitting in a tree, making revision tables hee hee hee!_ ”   
  
Ron ignored them. Hermione was not his girlfriend. Yeah, he s’posed she’d been looking fit recently, but she was Hermione. She wasn’t a romantic prospect. She was a walking dictionary. He wasn’t rushing at the owl because it was from Hermione. He just couldn’t help but notice where it was coming from.  
  
Harry and Hermione thought Ron was such a dunce. They never said it to him directly (well, Hermione did sometimes when she was particularly frustrated with his lack of academic motivation), but they didn’t expect him to notice things. But he was good at noticing stuff! Well, specific stuff like the slight hue change in the Chudley Cannons official merchandise or what direction Hermione’s owls came from. And Hermione’s owls always came from the west. But, suddenly, a few weeks ago, they were all coming from the east.  
  
Hermione never said she moved, and owls rarely got lost, so Ron had determined one thing: Hermione was up to something. He wasn’t sure how to confront her. Send a howler? Write her a long letter revealing his masterful detective skills? Tell his mom? She wrote owls to Mrs. Granger sometimes. And she would get to the bottom of it.  
  
As Ron took the letter from the owl, tucking it quickly into his coat as he heard the twins’ feet land behind him, he wondered if Harry would notice the change. Doubted it.  
  
“Letter from your lover, Ron?” Fred asked, slinging an arm over his shoulder.  
  
“Ho ho! I didn’t know my little brother had it in him!” George responded, pretending to accidentally hit him with broom. “Oi, sorry Ron!”  
  
“Har har,” Ron muttered. “You know I’m not interested in Hermione.”  
  
“Don’t want to get together like Ginny and Harry then?” Fred asked, his voice a little more sincere.  
  
“Make a matching set?” George laughed.  
  
“I just want to give this letter from my FRIEND Hermione to my FRIEND Harry,” Ron responded.  
  
“Well we just want to tell our BROTHER Ron that he’s ANNOYING,” Fred laughed.  
  
“He’s a RIGHT PRAT,” George shouted.  
  
“With a real BLOCK HEAD,” Fred shouted back.  
  
Ron shook them off as he stalked toward the house. He could hear them in the distance, continuing with the usual insults. He hoped that he wouldn’t catch Ginny and Harry again. The two had kissed recently and it seemed as if they couldn’t stop. Or wouldn’t. And they really should—if only for Ron’s sanity. Ron had caught them kissing in the shed and in the kitchen and, most galling of all, in his room up against his Chudley Cannons poster. As if nothing was sacred anymore. It was all very disgusting and disturbing, not to mention now that Ginny had Harry’s romantic interest she expected to hang out with them all the time.  
  
Ginny was fine, but… Ron knew that he was expected to hang out with her. The twins had one another. Bill and Charlie lived away from home doing very exciting things and out of the reach of their mother’s interference. Percy was more like to cozy up to a legal text than another human being. So, that left Ron to hang out with Ginny. Ginny was Ginny. She was his younger sister, and generally annoying. After the Chamber of Secrets incident, she got aggressive. So then she was both annoying and scary. But, besides quidditch, they didn’t have much in common and, frankly, Ron wanted some time alone with Harry to discuss boy stuff and other stuff and the thing that had happened in Diagon Alley that Ron refused to think about.  
  
But Harry was too busy mauling Ginny’s face to notice about the thing in Diagon Alley or the direction from which Hermione’s owls were suddenly arriving.   
  
Ron took a deep breath, and knocked on his bedroom door. “It is me, Ron!” he announced loudly. “I’m knocking so I can be sure that my eyes can stay in my head!”  
  
Harry swung the door open with a grin. “All safe here. Ginny’s out with your Mum.”  
  
Ron felt a wave of relief wash over him and collapsed onto his bed. “Thank Merlin. No offense. I’m glad you and Ginny are happy but…” He shuddered.   
  
“Yeah,” Harry blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry about that. I didn’t think…”  He didn’t complete the thought and they stared at each other for a moment before breaking the nervous silence with a laugh. “I’ll be more careful in the future.”  
  
“You better be,” Ron warned. He dug the note out of his pocket, handing it to his bespectacled friend. “Letter from Hermione.” As he waited for Harry to finish reading, Ron decided to take the plunge. “Have you noticed anything about Hermione’s owls?”  
  
Harry turned the letter over, looking for words on the other side. “No. I mean, I’m surprised—based on what she’s said—that her mother let her take care of the garden.”  
  
“No. Not the letters. The owls.”  
  
Harry looked up, blinking behind large spectacles. “They’re… not owls?”  
  
Ron resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “No, they’re… they’re owls. They just are coming from a different direction than normal.”  
  
Harry grinned, any concern vanished from his face. “Oh, sure. OK. I didn’t notice, but that doesn’t seem like a big deal. Owls are weird.”  
  
Ron nodded. He wasn’t convinced but he nodded. “So, what’d she say?”  
  
Harry looked down at the piece of parchment. “Her parents have gone for a holiday so she’s at the house alone.” In another life Ron would have suggested a party, but that life was not this one. “She’s tending her mum’s garden and trying to avoid her dad’s woodworking stuff. She’s worried she’ll cut herself on a…” Harry looked down, double checking, “table saw.”  
  
Ron nodded. He hummed, as if thinking about this non-information. “But her owls. They’re coming from a different direction.”  
  
Harry looked up, exasperated. “Why do you care so much?”  
  
“What if she’s in trouble?”  
  
Harry paled at this. Ron didn’t mean to take advantage of Harry’s natural sense of responsibility. But, here they were. “Do you really think she is? Her letters… but… if she’s in trouble we need to stop it.”  
  
Ron tried to hide a sigh in a cough. _Super Harry to the rescue._ “No. No. I think maybe she’s just hiding a…” Ron wracked his brain to figure out what Hermione would hide. “A… failed O.W.L. or… secret potion accident or… something. I’ll have my mom owl her my mom to find out what’s up.”  
  
Harry relaxed, smiling. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. She has been kind of short in her letters lately. I bet she got an E or something.”  
  
Ron tucked the letter back into his pocket. “Yeah, yeah. I bet that’s it.” He laid on the bed but, as he looked at the ceiling, he was anything but relaxed.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this counts as Dramione content, but let me know.


End file.
